Driver to drive?

[Rick C]

I'm guessing it has something to do with the Iran news and doubt over oil prices going forward, but Tesla broke 470 yesterday, a new record.

No, wait, today Tesla stock broke 480!

Wait, wait! You say Tesla stock broke 490 today??? Wow!

So I'm thinking the recent price increase is starting to look less like a rally and a lot more like a bubble. Still, they just keep coming up with good news. They got the Shenzhen factory online and have started selling cars. They have said the model Y shipments from Fremont will be earlier than anticipated. Wait, is this really the Tesla we know and love? EARLIER???!!! Not a miss, but a home run!

Personally I think the model Y will sell more than the model 3. In fact, the one thing I'm worried about is with people liking SUVs so much, the Y will cannibalize model 3 sales. Still, that's a win, no? So far there's no Osborn effect and Tesla sells every car they can make.

--

Rick C.

+--- Get 1,000 miles of free Supercharging
+--- Tesla referral code - https://ts.la/richard11209

 

[Piotr Wyderski]

piglet wrote:

I think 500V to 2V at 2uA is a very tough challenge, John Larkin said to
use a regular inductive converter in burst mode, but I am unconvinced.

2uA I_out, I should have added. Nanoamps at the HV side. Indeed, very
though, but there it is. The Oxford bell electromechanical converter
might not turn out to be that silly an idea, methinks.

Wet tantalum used
within ratings has no known wearout mechanism but the prices will amaze.

The price of a service visit can be even more amazing, so sometimes it
pays off overall. But why is there no wearout? A rubber seal is just a
rubber seal, i.e. leaky.

Best regards, Piotr

 

100 or 80 Lb CELL PACKS in a single module and maybe 5 or 6 per
side of the car for a 10 or 12 cell car. They get slid out and
replaced as the car goes through a car wash style changeout machine.

I would limit it to 50lb. Most cargo handler do up to 50lb or 22kg.

Three of these modules in series give a suitcase of 12V 2500Wh 50
pounds unit of around 40"x20"x10" in size. I can probable fix 10
to 20 of them in my cargo space of 3'x4'x6'

Put one or two in your trunk with a converter to charge up your car
with. But as a system for entire cars? Nope. WAY too many nodes.
Way too many failure points.

Only half are removable. The fixed half are more reliably connected. The removable half can get loose while moving. So what, just fix it at next stop or pump the energy into the fixed half when convenient.

 

[Dave Platt]

In article <6142d151-10ad-4944-87d0-a2dddbd176de@googlegroups.com>,
<jurb6006@gmail.com> wrote:

https://www.siig.com/serial-ata-4-channel-raid.html#siigspec

That shows a PCIe card.

But, the specifications clearly say that it's a 32-bit PCI card, and
the requirements say "Pentium, with one free PCI slot".

Wouldn't be the first time the wrong photograph was used for a product.

 

[whit3rd]

On Tuesday, January 7, 2020 at 2:12:51 PM UTC-8, Piotr Wyderski wrote:

The advantage is at low power. I built a 6 stage capacitive divider 48V
to 5V at max 10 microamperes input (on-hook POTS 48V). Microamp inductor
based buck converters do not appear to be easy.

If I wanted 500V->2V step-down at 2uA and reasonable efficiency (say,
50+%), how would you approach that requirements? The Oxford bell?

Well, the 500V side will average 4 nA or so, so a switchmode solution
has to have leakage well under that. Maybe you want an acoustic delay line,
triggering (and excited by) a UV flash tube, feeding a long-delay phosphor
and snazzy photocells. The phosphor is your filter, the UV tube can
be made self-starting with small amounts of radiioactives, and the
acoustic delay will look like a slinky. To quench the arc, though, you might
want to have some more recognizable electronic components clustered around
the slinky coupling transformer.

That presumes you can get by with PWM and the transformation ratio of the
photonic conversions, but no feedback. Its tricky to get feedback when
the permissible leakages are down under the level of mass-production testing.

Perhaps an electroluminescent panel and silicon cell is a more sane alternative,
but a lithium cell can give your 2 uA for a decade, and that's how I'd usually go.

 

[Dave Platt]

In article <t5mheg-aip.ln1@coop.radagast.org>,
Dave Platt <dplatt@coop.radagast.org> wrote:

In article <6142d151-10ad-4944-87d0-a2dddbd176de@googlegroups.com>,
jurb6006@gmail.com> wrote:
https://www.siig.com/serial-ata-4-channel-raid.html#siigspec

That shows a PCIe card.

But, the specifications clearly say that it's a 32-bit PCI card, and
the requirements say "Pentium, with one free PCI slot".

Wouldn't be the first time the wrong photograph was used for a product.

Aaah... I think I see the problem. I think you are misinterpreting
what you see in the picture.

The card shows an edge connector with two key-slots cut into it. I
think you're interpreting the presence of the key slot that's closest
to the bracket, as meaning "This is a PCIe card", since it resembles
a PCIe x16 card to some extent.

I don't believe that's what it is. Rather, what you're looking at is
a 32-bit PCI "universal" card - that is, one which will work in 5-volt
PCI slots (the rear key-cut indicates this) and also in 3.3-volt PCI
slots (the front key-cut indicates this).

Older 5-volt-only PCI cards will have only one key-slot in their edge
connector. The front part of the edge connector will be solid. A
3.3-volt PCI motherboard has a key near the bracket end of the
connector, and this will block any 5-volt-only card you try to plug
in.

I've spent a bit of time this morning looking at PCI-to-SATA card
auctions on eBay. A lot of them have this double-notched "universal"
edge connector... and when I look up the chip-sets on those cards, the
data sheets say that they're PCI, not PCIe.

http://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Conventional_PCI shows pictures and
drawings of a bunch of the slots and edge connectors.

 

[Rick C]

On Wednesday, January 8, 2020 at 4:32:49 AM UTC-5, jurb...@gmail.com wrote:

no need to shout...

I quoted that, it is not easy to uncap something

https://www.aliexpress.com/item/4000480958135.html

They want a membership. I will melt this thing down before I generate another membership. Or shoot it with buck a round Hydra-Shoks.

Why don't they just want to sell shit ?

I am not in a good mood, not to take it out here but to describe it, if I get another membership they are going to have a password protocol so frigged up I can't remember it so I'll have to write it down. What kind of security is that ?

Yeah, it's kinda funny. When I had a clearance we were not allowed to write down combinations. Now they expect you to write it down which is a bad idea for several reasons. I just let the browser remember mine, plus I use several different passwords depending on how much I care if someone hacks into the account. First level is something not too far from "password", lol.. The others get better with digits, caps, specials and the highest security password I use with banks and such use all the techniques.

What I hate is when they have rules for passwords that conflict with other site's rules. The worst ever was a government web site for registering out of country shipments. They made you use what amounted to a random password that you had to change each month. I didn't even use the web site more than once a month, so a new password each time. They also didn't give you all the rules for passwords until you broke the rule, so it was on the job education. Like the special characters, they'd accept some, but not all and some of those the just didn't tell you about. You just had to figure it out. lol

Has to have this and that and be so many characters and then you finally get to "givemeaccessrightnoworiasmcomingdowtheretosdhootyou" and they say "Sorry, that one had been taken".

As such, the best password is probably 111111. Nobody would think anyone would use it. A hacker would kick himself finding that one out.

Yeah, right. That's probably in the top 1000 is not the top 100 of passwords to try, right below "password".

Reminds me of the olman's 1957 Chevy. (nice, one seat, wheelies in second gear) he lost the keys so instead of getting a new ignition he just pulled all but one tumbler out and many many keys would work it. BUT NOBODY KNEW.

Like door locks. Leave them unlocked. Someone comes along and finds it unlocked they will say "Shit, they're here and probably still up".

I don't lock one of my houses. It's remote enough a lock won't keep them out. Some kids broke in once. After breaking a garage window they found a basement door open. Lol They couldn't get in the garage because they didn't know they could just reach up to the opener release. lol

You can walk in here and read my mail, get on here as well as many forums out there transparently. What is anyone going to do to me ? Tell my boss I like kinky sex, he knows. I work for myself. My card has ZERO liability, so that is not a problem, the bank will go to Nigeria and take care of it or just eat it, not me. Nothing is in my name and unless you got the combo to my safe you get nothing.

No, no more passwords.

Yeah, I see where the limitations come from.

--

Rick C.

- Get 1,000 miles of free Supercharging
- Tesla referral code - https://ts.la/richard11209

 

[dcaster@krl.org]

On Wednesday, January 8, 2020 at 4:32:49 AM UTC-5, jurb...@gmail.com wrote:

no need to shout...

I quoted that, it is not easy to uncap something

https://www.aliexpress.com/item/4000480958135.html

They want a membership. I will melt this thing down before I generate another membership. Or shoot it with buck a round Hydra-Shoks.

Why don't they just want to sell shit ?

I am not in a good mood, not to take it out here but to describe it, if I get another membership they are going to have a password protocol so frigged up I can't remember it so I'll have to write it down. What kind of security is that ?

Let me defend AlyExpress. Their web site is not close to perfect , but you can search for things without logging in. if you find something that you want , you are going to have to give them an address to ship to. And a credit card or pay pal account. So that is what the log in is for. They do not store your credit card number unless you click on a box. No automatic store credit card number. And if you decide to get another something , you can find every thing you ever ordered under " orders ".

Dan

 

[John Doe]

Rick C <gnuarm.deletethisbit@gmail.com> wrote:

So where are you getting 20700 batteries? Tesla makes 21700, are
you buying used model 3 batteries?

If Tesla makes them, Tesla isn't the only maker. I have plenty of new
(not extracted from a battery pack) Sanyo NCR20700A/B/C, two low current
super high capacity Sanyo 21700s, and lots of 18650s. Besides from
ordinary sellers, you might find high-capacity high-current Sanyos like
the NCR20700C in a premium tool battery like DeWalt's 20 V Max 12 amp
hour pack.

 

[dcaster@krl.org]

On Wednesday, January 8, 2020 at 6:44:00 AM UTC-5, Michael Terrell wrote:

On Sunday, January 5, 2020 at 9:43:20 AM UTC-5, jurb...@gmail.com wrote:
Why I need this, whatever, just forget it, got a source or not ? If I got a source for you I will tell.

PCI FOUR PORT SATA ADAPTER.

It must be THAT. It cannot be PCIe, it cannot e less than four ports. The type of SATA interface does not concern me, it can be from 1957 if it works. It is all files. Well a few programs but not the OS but I am going to move the swapfile to the biggest drive and give it lots of room. So that will be rust, not SSD.

Help me get the right thing to my door for like $20-25 ad I will buy you beer and ship it anywhere in the world, except Islamic countries, I had enough enemies. Or like weed, not unless it is legal there. Or just a fucking 10 and you buy what you want.

I have already looked and there are some that are misrepresented, they are PCIe, not PCI even though they say it specifically. Like on Amazon. Companies lie all the time and I'll be damned if they are going to collect interest on my money for six months before sending the refund.

Yes, you might see that I am in a frightfully good mood today, Bottom line though is I trust even my worst nemesis here more than any big company. Some of you run older PCs for different reasons so I figure maybe someone knows where to get this stuff, otherwise I would not bother you with it.

Thanks in advance.

https://www.ebay.com/c/134217376 used $10.00 + 9.30 shipping

https://www.ebay.com/itm/124015993842 New $11.74 + free shipping

$ 7.45 on AlyExpress with free shipping.

Dan

 

[piglet]

On 08/01/2020 19:02, Piotr Wyderski wrote:

piglet wrote:

I think 500V to 2V at 2uA is a very tough challenge, John Larkin said
to use a regular inductive converter in burst mode, but I am unconvinced.

2uA I_out, I should have added. Nanoamps at the HV side. Indeed, very
though, but there it is. The Oxford bell electromechanical converter
might not turn out to be that silly an idea, methinks.

Wet tantalum used within ratings has no known wearout mechanism but
the prices will amaze.

The price of a service visit can be even more amazing, so sometimes it
pays off overall. But why is there no wearout? A rubber seal is just a
rubber seal, i.e. leaky.

    Best regards, Piotr

I think that means you have not seen a wet tantalum? They are hermetic,
glass-metal sealed. Plenty to be seen at Mouser and Digikey - admire the
prices.

piglet

 

[piglet]

On 08/01/2020 21:45, piglet wrote:

On 08/01/2020 19:02, Piotr Wyderski wrote:
piglet wrote:

I think 500V to 2V at 2uA is a very tough challenge, John Larkin said
to use a regular inductive converter in burst mode, but I am
unconvinced.

2uA I_out, I should have added. Nanoamps at the HV side. Indeed, very
though, but there it is. The Oxford bell electromechanical converter
might not turn out to be that silly an idea, methinks.

Wet tantalum used within ratings has no known wearout mechanism but
the prices will amaze.

The price of a service visit can be even more amazing, so sometimes it
pays off overall. But why is there no wearout? A rubber seal is just a
rubber seal, i.e. leaky.

     Best regards, Piotr

I think that means you have not seen a wet tantalum? They are hermetic,
glass-metal sealed. Plenty to be seen at Mouser and Digikey - admire the
prices.

piglet

Correction: cheaper ones can be elastomer sealed, the really high spec
units are hermetic. I don't know the details but there must be tricks to
keep hot pressurized sulfuric acid inside!

piglet

 

[John Doe]

Steve Wilson <no@spam.com> wrote:

whit3rd <whit3rd@gmail.com> wrote:
John Doe wrote:

I am neat, careful, and quick to avoid overheating when
soldering. How possible is it to solder a large lithium-ion
battery without damaging or degrading the battery? For
connecting batteries together.

If you don't use welding, a solder joint to nickel (or
nickel-plated) battery terminals can be made with an overly hot
iron, a bit of wire solder, and an acid (HCl/H2SO4) flux. Once
tinned, solder at normal solder temperatures (but you wnat to get
the surface wet FAST before the battery takes damage, and a cool
iron won't do it).

Spot welding is probably safer and more reliable. There are tons
of examples on Youtube and on the web:

CHEAP Spot Welder DIY (using simple tools) PLANS
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4q4oMVtW4FI

I watched the first video. That video is amazing, for clearly
showing how incredibly easier and less time-consuming using the car
battery, solenoid, and momentary switch method would be for spot
welding battery terminals. That video suggests using a microwave
oven transformer is for sustained high current applications like the
guy demonstrates at the end of the video. Spot welding batteries
takes only a moment per weld. Very different applications and WAY
too much work to make five two-cell battery packs.

I bought some flux for the first time, yesterday. One benefit to using
the extra flux might be putting solder on the iron tip and letting it
heat up before applying it to the fluxed terminal, reducing the
application time. Seems to work well. Might be a good idea to do that
and forget trying to add solder.

 

[Rick C]

On Wednesday, January 8, 2020 at 4:16:26 PM UTC-5, dca...@krl.org wrote:

On Wednesday, January 8, 2020 at 4:32:49 AM UTC-5, jurb...@gmail.com wrote:
no need to shout...

I quoted that, it is not easy to uncap something

https://www.aliexpress.com/item/4000480958135.html

They want a membership. I will melt this thing down before I generate another membership. Or shoot it with buck a round Hydra-Shoks.

Why don't they just want to sell shit ?

I am not in a good mood, not to take it out here but to describe it, if I get another membership they are going to have a password protocol so frigged up I can't remember it so I'll have to write it down. What kind of security is that ?



Let me defend AlyExpress. Their web site is not close to perfect , but you can search for things without logging in. if you find something that you want , you are going to have to give them an address to ship to. And a credit card or pay pal account. So that is what the log in is for. They do not store your credit card number unless you click on a box. No automatic store credit card number. And if you decide to get another something , you can find every thing you ever ordered under " orders ".

Dan

I order from eBay all the time. I order from Aliexpress less often. I recently bought USB flash drives from Aliexpress because they had some unique shapes and very low prices. Too low. I suspected the devices were fake, a setting in the flash drive determines the size reported and this can be altered. So on receipt I tested the flash and the first one was faked. I disputed the purchase and they gave me a full refund.

I received the second one and it too tested as faked. Reported this one and they would only refund a small portion of the price so I had to dispute it on my credit card.

On receiving and testing the third device I bought Aliexpress expected me to not only perform the 6 hour test to verify the drive is faked, but they wanted me to provide them with a video of the process!!! So I had to dispute the entire purchase on the credit card. I'm not buying anything else from Aliexpress unless it is really important.

I've never had a problem with eBay not accepting a complaint that I recall. A couple of times a vendor who was faking wire size wanted me to return the item. I have no way to print out the label and so eBay rejected my claim and I had to use the credit card. That guy is in Maryland and I'd love to call the Attorney General on him, but it is likely a lot off work to get the ball rolling.

--

Rick C.

+ Get 1,000 miles of free Supercharging
+ Tesla referral code - https://ts.la/richard11209

 

[Piotr Wyderski]

piglet wrote:

I think that means you have not seen a wet tantalum? They are hermetic,
glass-metal sealed. Plenty to be seen at Mouser and Digikey - admire the
prices.

You are perfectly right, I have no experience with them. This one looks
decent:

https://pl.mouser.com/datasheet/2/427/he3-240943.pdf

But the specification of this kilobuck part says: "Life Test: capacitors
are capable of withstanding a 2000 h life test at a temperature of +85
°C at the applicable rated DC working voltage."

Pardon me, how many hours? Three months of uninterrupted operation?
A hamster lives for 2 years despite not being exactly hermetic...

This unreliable electrochemical technology should have long been forgotten.

Best regards, Piotr

 

[Piotr Wyderski]

whit3rd wrote:

Well, the 500V side will average 4 nA or so, so a switchmode solution
has to have leakage well under that.

Even the primary side capacitor would need to have leakage well under
that, which makes this entire approach a brain fart in practice. But it
can have some value as a food for speculation. Certainly doable, this
unit has been working since 1840:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Oxford_Electric_Bell

That presumes you can get by with PWM and the transformation ratio of the
photonic conversions, but no feedback.

A ball on a thread turns out to be sufficient to get a 2Hz fixed duty
cycle switched capacitor converter.

> but a lithium cell can give your 2 uA for a decade, and that's how I'd usually go.

If a decade is long enough, then no question about it. But how about a
century? Betavoltaics?

On a similar note: why there are no small NiFe batteries with catalytic
hydrogen burners on the market, say 1Ah? They would be eternal, have a
look at that:

https://www.nickel-iron-battery.com/Edison%20Cell%20Rejuvenation%2085%20yr-old%2013.%20DeMar.pdf

A guy revived a number of 85yo Edison cells and brought them close to
their peak capacity.

Best regards, Piotr

 

[Whoey Louie]

On Friday, January 3, 2020 at 2:29:54 PM UTC-5, whit3rd wrote:

On Friday, January 3, 2020 at 1:20:37 AM UTC-8, Martin Brown wrote:
On 21/12/2019 08:16, whit3rd wrote:
On Friday, December 20, 2019 at 5:06:15 PM UTC-8, Whoey Louie wrote:

My suspicion is that there are far more serious and deeper problems at
Boeing that remain.

We can be sure that a large corporate producer of aircraft has 'serious
and deep' problems, that's why they hire folk to solve 'em.

If you're thinking 'Boeing is jinxed' and that the CEO must be sacrificed on
an altar, that's just wacky.

Sacrificing the CEO might just focus minds.

Oh, I think the minds are focused by other things ( loss of lives, decertification
of aircraft, costly inventory buildup in large parking lots, stock value falling).

Boeing's CEO just got replaced, but that's a very minor bit of the drama.
One could argue for replacing the FAA administrator, but there was none
at the time of the crashes, the administration hadn't made that appointment.

Here is an interesting item:

https://boingboing.net/2020/01/08/737-ng.html

"Trying to land on some runways causes the Boeing 737's control screens to go black"



Now that's quite stunning and something you'd never expect. I wonder
what other unexpected software interactions are in planes that no one
has found yet?

 

On Friday, December 20, 2019 at 11:32:14 AM UTC-5, Joseph Gwinn wrote:

On Dec 20, 2019, jlarkin@highlandsniptechnology.com wrote
(in article<crspvet0fp3dndn2lq0qu59c6l1kcceo3h@4ax.com&gt:


https://www.washingtonpost.com/technology/2019/12/20/boeing-starliner-launch/

Paywall; article not read.

.
Boeing can't code.

Nah. I follow the story in Aviation Week. The problem is not bad coding
(although there is always bad code to be fixed), it´s that the requirements
were insufficient to the problem, and the people in Boeing that pointed that
out were ignored.

The most striking example of this is the decision to bet the airplane on the
correct operation of a single attitude sensor -- attitude sensors are
famously trouble-plagued.

Joe Gwinn

Hmmm- the French lost an Airbus with three angle of attack sensors. One was good, two were bad due to icing, and the voting scheme threw out the good reading and went with the two bad ones. Looks like you latched onto yet another flawed hypothesis. You can read about it here:
https://www.flightglobal.com/sensor-icing-caught-out-a320-crew-in-perpignan-crash/95893.article

 

[Martin Brown]

On 27/12/2019 18:57, Peter wrote:

Martin Brown <'''newspam'''@nezumi.demon.co.uk> wrote

Boeing even deliberately erased all mention of MCAS from the 737-Max
flight manual - they missed the entry in "Glossary of terms" though.

This is a misrepresentation, because the bigger picture is more
complex.

Boeing had no interest in producing an unsafe aeroplane. The problem
here is a combination of several things

- the airlines wanting a common Type Rating (I am a pilot too, btw)
and applying a lot of pressure to get it, and this implied not
documenting the MCAS differences

Deliberately obfuscating a system that has the potential to dive the
plane into the ground in the event of a relatively common fault.

- Boeing cocking up the software (but Airbus have done similar things,
which is why they are not gloating too much)

- the two airlines that crashed the MAX having poorly trained pilots
(go to any commercial pilot school and watch the bulk of the
clientele, these days )

Boeing internal emails released to the enquiry and leaked today suggest
that there were knowledgable voices inside Boeing very unhappy with the
way the 737-Max was being "engineered". The quote making the headlines
is "Designed by clowns who in turn are supervised by monkeys".

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/business-51058929

- the two crews that crashed doing silly stuff on departure which
activated MCAS

They were flying normally until they retracted the flaps after takeoff
and MCAS cut in with its very determined effort to crash the plane. The
second lot even tried Boeing's approved "fix" but already starting at
high altitude on takeoff and surrounded by even higher mountains they
didn't have enough physical strength, time or space to make it work.

One thing that did surprise me as a non-pilot was why the SOP for
recovering from an MCAS MFU was not to extend flaps again to slow the
plane and take the MCAS unit out of the loop. Minor mechanical damage,
fuel economy and noise are unimportant when the alternative is crashing.

- poor maintenance (departing with defective AoA sensors)

You need all these holes in the cheese to line up.

Boeing seems to have too many holes in its cheeses though. The latest
737 MFU is don't land on runways at exactly 270 in certain airports!

https://www.theregister.co.uk/2020/01/08/boeing_737_ng_cockpit_screen_blank_bug/

They seem to be unusually accident prone and the FAA asleep on the job.

--
Regards,
Martin Brown

 

[Whoey Louie]

On Friday, January 10, 2020 at 4:47:40 AM UTC-5, Martin Brown wrote:

On 27/12/2019 18:57, Peter wrote:

Martin Brown <'''newspam'''@nezumi.demon.co.uk> wrote

Boeing even deliberately erased all mention of MCAS from the 737-Max
flight manual - they missed the entry in "Glossary of terms" though.

This is a misrepresentation, because the bigger picture is more
complex.

Boeing had no interest in producing an unsafe aeroplane. The problem
here is a combination of several things

- the airlines wanting a common Type Rating (I am a pilot too, btw)
and applying a lot of pressure to get it, and this implied not
documenting the MCAS differences

Deliberately obfuscating a system that has the potential to dive the
plane into the ground in the event of a relatively common fault.

- Boeing cocking up the software (but Airbus have done similar things,
which is why they are not gloating too much)

- the two airlines that crashed the MAX having poorly trained pilots
(go to any commercial pilot school and watch the bulk of the
clientele, these days )

Boeing internal emails released to the enquiry and leaked today suggest
that there were knowledgable voices inside Boeing very unhappy with the
way the 737-Max was being "engineered". The quote making the headlines
is "Designed by clowns who in turn are supervised by monkeys".

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/business-51058929

- the two crews that crashed doing silly stuff on departure which
activated MCAS

They were flying normally until they retracted the flaps after takeoff
and MCAS cut in with its very determined effort to crash the plane. The
second lot even tried Boeing's approved "fix" but already starting at
high altitude on takeoff and surrounded by even higher mountains they
didn't have enough physical strength, time or space to make it work.

One thing that did surprise me as a non-pilot was why the SOP for
recovering from an MCAS MFU was not to extend flaps again to slow the
plane and take the MCAS unit out of the loop. Minor mechanical damage,
fuel economy and noise are unimportant when the alternative is crashing.

I brought this up earlier too. And this was after the first crash, when
Boeing, it's test pilots, etc. had plenty of time to think about what would
work quickly and effectively. Extending flaps to the first position would
have worked. Instead they opted for using the runaway trim procedure.
And with that, they have been lucky, because any runaway trim caused by
anything, eg a stuck switch, could apparently produce the same result in
any 737. Which is that it may be impossible for the pilots to move the
trim wheels by hand if the plane is going too fast, diving too steeply, etc.

The other thing that would have worked, that should have been offered as
an alternative would be to first use the trim buttons to get the trim
back to near normal and then immediately turn off the electric trim
and then trim the rest of the way by hand. You would think pilots that
really understand the system and the issue after Boeing alerted them
would have thought of this too, but the Ethiopian pilots did not.
Also IDK about you, but with any system I'm dealing with, if I change
something and then suddenly everything starts to go wrong, me first
reaction is to undo what I just did. If these crash pilots had just done
that, ie re-extend flaps, like you say, MCAS would have been disabled.

- poor maintenance (departing with defective AoA sensors)

You need all these holes in the cheese to line up.

Boeing seems to have too many holes in its cheeses though. The latest
737 MFU is don't land on runways at exactly 270 in certain airports!

https://www.theregister.co.uk/2020/01/08/boeing_737_ng_cockpit_screen_blank_bug/

They seem to be unusually accident prone and the FAA asleep on the job.

--
Regards,
Martin Brown