this post was submitted on 02 Dec 2023
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The explaination of how differentials work was painfully wrong. An I lost confidence in this author's ability to explain the topic.
Ok. Care to elaborate, please?
https://youtu.be/yYAw79386WI
Apparently I can watch that video every couple months and still be equally amazed by it.
Please remind me to watch this again in a few months, it's super cool.
Right?
I'm continually blown away at what 19th-century engineers understood and could do.
Perfect
I knew exactly which video that would be. Such a perfectly clear explanation.
That was awesome and perfectly explanatory. I learned something new today
There's a bunch of old training vids like that on YouTube. Lots of people could learn how to present from them - they're so much better than most stuff on YouTube.
There are a lot of these from back in the couple of decades after WWII when society actually cared about science and knowledge and companies used the spreading of knowledge as a selling point.
https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/3/3e/Around_the_Corner_%281937%29_24fps_selection.webm
Wiki to the rescue!
It's a great video from 1937.
And the article has info as well https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Differential_(mechanical_device)
Modern cars have "traction control", which detects when a wheel turns more than the other wheel. If it turns too much more, it will engage a "diff lock" and lock the differential which makes each wheel turn with the same power/speed/energy as if the differential was just a solid axle.
The long & the short of it is that a differential is only "1 wheel drive" when the differential "thinks" (it's not smart) it should put all the power into 1 wheel - which is when the cars computer locks the differential.
That's only some cars.
Many today still use open diffs. Some use open diffs and braking to produce a result that looks like traction control or a torque biasing diff.
Some cars use electronically-controlled diffs that can vary pressure on clutches using simple electric servos to bias torque - Bendix is a big supplier of such things to companies like Honda.
Others use hydraulics, similar to torque converters, to bias torque (e.g. Audi's original Quattro system).
And others use gearing to bias torque, such as Quaife differentials.
Factory systems (with rare exceptions) don't use locking diffs (GM has one as an option, others may).
Please forgive my laziness - https://chat.openai.com/share/45e326f5-1653-4c51-b057-b36326963559
Came here to say this.
It was sooooo wrong. Painful is right.