Alright. Its gonna sound like im knocking AA here. It may sound like it, thats only because i am.
They got the ipads, and they told everyone, "hey im just sticking them into a 115 ac bus". And everyone said, "oh f you stop it. You cant and shouldnt do that." You ever have that weasle 737 FO turn around, plug into the 3 phase plug for the vaccum plug on the rear bulkhead and give you that stupid grin like "i know it says not to but im smarter than the engineers?" Same thing.
Faa allows it, i still to this day think its because the FAA was tired of AAs poop and wanted to see if theyd shut up after. And to Boeings credit they said, "youll bounce the ground plane, youre gonna be floating sometimes because they arent double insulated charging cables". AA, like that weasle FO is like "yeah it works fine."
They spend the money, it works great, couple weeks into using them the 777 screens start dying, all at once. They die, they come back up, they die, they fry or come back up. AA says, "Boeing, *pointing* this is all your fault!". Boeing sends a few tech guys out to check the boxes with AA engineering. They crack open the case, flip on a flashlight carefully check the boards but in a rushed, jovial manner. Omg, this giant resistor on both boxes blew out! They just blew! Says the AA engineer.
Boeing guys laugh because theyve already been taking bets with the hamilton sundstrand or rockwell collins guys who manufactured the boxes. "Yeah you floated the groundplane and the GD unit has been pulling ground backwards through that circuit and its slowly been toasting the resistor."
AA gives them the pikachu open mouth, studdering, "but the IPADS are FINE!". Sure are chief, and theyll be fine forever, you will fry every screen on the plane eventually. Now if you plug it into another bus, youll probably fry something in there shortly afterwards." You bounce a ground plane its anyones guess where that circuit is now gonna find its electrons. Good luck effer. But yes, the ipad is fine.
So they went to batteries for a while and now everyone is double shielding and locally grounding the NEW chaging port everyone told them they needed the whole time.
