This is an ad for something CT-scan-related, but it contains a good breakdown of how an old car cigarette lighter works. And it has a couple interactive CT Scan explorers past the video.

  • Admiral Patrick
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    882 months ago

    Ah, the old school electric car cigarette lighter. Also known as "The curious child’s first learning experience with the concept of ‘hot’ "

  • @w3dd1e@lemm.ee
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    102 months ago

    This company is does a cool thing. I saw them on Adam Savage’s YouTube last year. Any product they scan, is uploaded to their site. Any person can launch the web app and look at the scans of the things they’ve scanned. You can view the full images in all dimensions.

  • @Darkassassin07@lemmy.ca
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    82 months ago

    The 3d scans you can manipulate on that page are pretty cool.

    Not all that surprised by the lighters mechanism though; a bit of nickle chrome wire for a heating element and some bi-metal strips to release it based on temperature. Pretty simple.

  • @hark@lemmy.world
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    62 months ago

    It’s cool how elegant the design is that it automatically ejects when it’s done heating up without needing a sensor and digital system to read and handle that action. It’s also cool how a feature designed solely to light a cigarette has been adapted to power all sorts of other things. I wonder if these ports will be obsoleted in favor of only having USBs.

      • @IphtashuFitz@lemmy.world
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        52 months ago

        My first GPS came with a cigarette lighter plug.

        My next one came with a USB cable along with a cigarette lighter to USB adapter.

        I think most these days now come with a USB cable but no adapter.

        I’m now starting to see some devices come with USB-C cables.

        • @el_abuelo@programming.dev
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          12 months ago

          You’re still buying GPS devices? What’s wrong with your phone?

          Not judging - genuinely curious why some people buy them.

          • @IphtashuFitz@lemmy.world
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            2 months ago

            Bought my first one probably 20+ years ago at this point.

            Bought my second one probably 10+ years ago when traveling abroad and it was more reliable and cheaper to have offline maps of the countries I was going to.

            We like to travel to places that often have spotty cellular coverage, if at all.

            • @el_abuelo@programming.dev
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              12 months ago

              Ah okay, I don’t go to places with spotty coverage all that often…and when I do I just download that part of Google maps onto my phone and it works just fine. And by “that part” I mean a significant part of my country! Small world here in Europe I guess.