Quote:
Originally Posted by Malcolm Towrie
Anyway, we have lots of manuals,Polish, Russian, and Bosnian (according to Google translate), and a couple of abbreviated ones in English, but Google struggles to do a comprehensible translation (or the manuals are very poorly written) so technical info is a problem.
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It' not just Google that has problems translating technical material. My parent's first VCR came with both English and French manuals. Trying to do the setup of the programming for channels and recording was virtually impossible using the English manual but rather easier using the French one even though everyone involved was very much "French is our second language". I'm convinced the English manual had been translated from Japanese, probably by by someone who was a very competent translator but had no expertise with using the machine in question. On the other hand, I believe the French manual had been done by someone who had been trained to program and operate the VCR and who had then followed the outline of the original manual (English? Japanese? doesn't matter) to write a French version.
To offer a
tiny bit of help on your 12/24 volt question - trucks used to employ a device known as a series-parallel switch to configure batteries to be able to provide 12 volts for most of the truck but 24 volts for the starting system. Higher voltage permits the same power to flow with lower current resulting in less heating of cables and letting smaller cables do the job. The power transmission grid uses the same voltage/current relationship to economically move electricity around the country - huge voltage, lower current.