Since EVs are very quiet, it could be a rolls machine, which is basically a treadmill for a car. They are used for running tests on vehicles and are outrageously loud. They can be used during prototyping. In a car factory it's at the very end of the assembly line and sometimes used for debugging vehicles that have come off the line with issues.
Here is what I would call a chassis dyno http://www.maha.de/roller-function-tester-fps-2700.htm
These are very very noisy, because the tires are moving at 70 or 80 mph (whatever you set) and make as much noise as tires going 70 down a highway (only 1 axle though!)
A rolling road is different in that the floor moves under the car, not just rollers under 1 or 2 axles. Like this http://www.qmtmag.com/images/Windshear_RR_05.jpg
The chassis dynos are noisy, these are super noisy.
Disclosure: I sold Maha dynos from 96-2000 with SnapOn/Sun branding, about 40 of them.
I thought a dyno is a mechanism that a standalone engine can be rigged up to on the bench to test it under (typically computer-) controlled conditions, measure its output, simulate different driving conditions, etc.
I've never heard any term except dyno (or dynamometer), but I much prefer those terms simply because it's more apparent to someone that doesn't have an understanding of engine & car testing.
I'm a fan of names that give insight into what the thing/product/service/company actually does.
dynos can measure at the engine (in which case they measure brake horse power) or at the wheels. Most individuals are more familiar with the ones that measure at the wheels, as that's how they would measure the effect of after-market modifications.
This was quite the sensationalist piece. Maybe something is going on, but maybe the explanation is more boring. Since everyone is taking wild guesses, allow me to partake:
The building is Apple's HR center. The people there mostly write reports on health insurance utilization.
The noise is office remodeling. They do it at night because people are working during the day.
I have it on good authority that there are several capacitors in the building. They're mostly used to filter the output of switching power supplies. Why right now, there are probably hundreds of capacitors inside your house!
Well went thru the links and not one sound clip I heard of this noise - which I find equally just as odd, lots reports of the noise and clips of people getting there slot of TV fame, but not one link to the actual noise - least what I gleaned thru.
So who knows, just equally as odd no recordings I could find of this noise, though there must be some out there somewhere I'd imagine if it is that much of an issue.
Yes, but article clearly states the neighbours can't stop talking about it. They're so busy talking about it that they haven't made time to record it.
Be patient. As soon as they all stop talking about it we can hear the noise.
What a BS linkbaity vaporous article. For all anyone knows Apple could be repairing an AC unit. Oh, and while I'm in a ranty mood. Aren't all labs "mysterious" from the outside?
No: I cut through parking lots and walk right next to lots of other Apple buildings in Sunnyvale. Occasionally I would see a guard in a car, but I'd never get stopped or questioned.
Given the ubiquity of sophisticated cell phones and other recording equipment, it's best to regard the lack of a recording as strong evidence that it does not exist. Just as if multiple people claimed the Loch Ness Monster had surfaced in San Francisco Bay but somehow there were no photographs of it.
Even better, hang it from a 20' cable below a drone and fly it over. Stream the audio back in case they somehow manage to disable the drone. I'm sure lots of people in the Bay Area have the equipment right now to do this, just a matter of if anyone cares.
Pardon my ignorance, but is it really feasible for a drone to carry a 20 foot cable with a mic? Wouldn't it drag pretty far behind the drone, making it unwieldy? Wouldn't you need 20 additional feet of clearance to avoid obstacles? There aren't a lot of tall buildings in Sunnyvale, but there are birds and other drones in the sky.
I think this thread is a bit pie in the sky and a bit of "just for fun" impracticality, but I do think one of the bigger octo drones, carefully piloted, could pull it off.
Remote-activated cable reel. Roll it up and get into position, then lower the skyhook. Pack it back up and fly off into the sunset! Now I want to do this. Yes you'd need a big wind screen (they make those and they're not crazy expensive) and a fairly large drone to deal with the extra weight of a condenser mic + XLR cable + 48v phantom power circuit + any reel mechanism, but considering the payload capacities of current drones in the 1-2kg range for a DJI Phantom 2 ( http://www.phantompilots.com/threads/flying-at-high-density-... ), it would require some engineering (and maybe removing the mic from the heavy casing or finding a really light mic), but definitely not impossible or even very challenging to do with off-the-shelf stuff and a bit of diddling.
Looks like a small data center under construction by converting an existing building. Large amounts of HVAC equipment for the size of the building. Cooling towers. Big fuel tank. Cummins Diesel emergency generator, size around 1MW. Lots of electrical conduit on outside of building.[1] Picnic area and half basketball court. Several construction trailers on site, so some remodeling is going on. Beeping trucks and banging on sheet metal sounds like HVAC work.
It's annoying the neighbors because it's directly across a drainage ditch from suburban houses. Nobody likes nighttime industrial construction opposite their backyard.
Thanks. Should've googled it myself. One of the first things I got to do when I joined my company(first job, just moving into the valley) was to tour our soon-to-be-dead DC. Was a really cool experience.
Look at the map GP posted. That residential block is sided by the Apple complex, a block of large industrial buildings, a Home Depot and an expressway.
Not sure if how company who netted $18 billion in their last quarter needs to generate buzz.
Either way, bringing a car to market is a wise move for Apple never struck me as a great idea. I've always suspected there's just too much good will and little-guy championing for Tesla to make Apple's offering a thing we want to own. Tesla vehicles are also incredibly well designed, aesthetically pleasing, and have a tonne of respect for laying the groundwork for this emerging industry.
Could it have been better for the brand to partner with Tesla and restore some credibility? Not sure. But I do predict they'll call this thing the Apple Auto.
I'm curious about the words "working-class neighborhood". Is this tongue-in-cheek? I've been trying to find housing in that area and it's on par with East Bay, if not worse.
I rented over there after college. I think working class is accurate. Lots of work trucks parked in the street, caltrain in the backyard and families with not a lot of income.
This isn't at the Sunnyvale office; it's an unbranded black site. Perhaps they interrogate their Google captives there as well; it's just about halfway between Apple and Google HQs.
Instead of a single flat rate for energy use, time-of-use rate plans are higher when electric demand is higher. This means when you use energy is just as important as how much you use.
Winter has two rate periods: off-peak and partial-peak. Summer has three: off-peak, partial-peak and peak. During peak periods, defined as weekdays from noon to 6 p.m., May through October, your business's electric rates will be higher. In return, time-of-use rate plans at all other times will be lower than the peak rate.
All business customers will transition to time-of-use rate plans over the next several years, as required by the California Public Utilities Commission.
Yes. Sure, we all know that electricity is cheaper at night, but would it make overall sense for the engineers to do their work at night for this reason?
First, they don't have to use the energy when they draw it from the grid. Charge an EV at night and test it all day.
Second, it only costs a couple bucks to charge an EV car even at peak rates. Surely the engineer's time and schedule is more important.
Depends on what type of work they are doing there. If it's light manufacturing, given the discussion of wobbly sheet metal and the like, you really wouldn't have many engineers there on shift, you'd have machinists who like working second shift/graveyard. Plus, given the location and security presence, it makes it a lot easier to chase curious people away while people are working.
Why should apple care about that? The cost of salary utterly dwarfs energy cost so much that even thinking about the slightly cheaper rates at night is a joke.
Apple is not a process manufacturer where energy is a large part of the budget.
Note the article doesn't really mention electric-type humming.
One neighbor described the sounds he hears at night as "sheets of metal slamming, clanking, almost a grinding sound."
This idea they're running large amounts of electricity to charge EVs seems far-fetched. And if a charger is making that much noise to wake the neighbors then, well, they have larger technology issues to handle.
Also: when you're a large industrial electricity consumer and you pull megawatts for your work, the utility usually wants you to run at night so you don't brown out the grid for everyone else during the day. Just another data point.
I realise you're joking, but one doesn't turn an aluminium electrolysis cell on and off at a whim (as in off in the day, on in the night). Shutdown and restart is bloody expensive, dangerous, and hard work to boot.
Sure. That's why you don't build an electrolysis cell in a location where electricity is (sometimes) scarce.
I'm half thinking that this is all shadow games, Apple having two guys running around and making mechanic-sounding noises to stir up the rumor mill. Mainly because a) making cars isn't really something that produces a lot of noise and b) because you don't put your real skunk works in a residential area. But you do put a fake one there.
It would be interesting if someone with a thermal imaging camera could have a look at that plant during day/night. If they're pulling loads of 'leccy only during the night, the plant should show anomalous cooling behavior.
Lockheed Martin might have OPSEC needs that require building a fake skunkworks, but Apple certainly does not. One imagines they put it in the suburbs because it was an area which is convenient to commute to, which was a boon to recruitment.
They might not need it for OPSEC, but they do have a stock price to worry about. Financial analysts are making increasingly frequent statements that Apple needs a new market to be the game-changer in if they are to sustain their growth, and Cook has said that anything car-related and groundbreaking will, if it exists, be relatively far into the future. Thus the need to stoke the rumor mill.
We're talking about a company with $200 billion in cash lying around. They could build a few large nuclear plants without making a significant dent in that pile of money.
Residential rates appear to be reasonably high (9th highest if I read this right: http://www.eia.gov/electricity/state/) but (a) presumably they're not exactly smelting aluminum and (b) don't they have a giant money pit that Tim Cook dives in Scrooge McDuck-style.
Question: Do you not have noise complain laws in the US? I mean if some company is producing that noise, waking people up, I would start calling the cops on them every time it happens. And regarding the security guards, maybe a daily pick-nick on the public property outside the buildinge would be a nice way to point the middle finger at them :) Just my two cents...
We have noise complaint laws, sure. They're different depending on the jurisdiction, of course, but they exist.
And as for the security guards, it doesn't sound like they're protecting public property. Depending on the laws in that area publicly accessible does not imply that people are allowed there, just that they can easily get there.
My God! Reversing trucks that make a beeping sound! Bangs! Thumps! This is quite extraordinary. Certainly not the kind of thing you would expect from almost any warehouse or industrial facility of any kind in the world.
I see you making sarcastic comments about all the silly noise that's being added to the thread. This is exactly the kind of noise we want to avoid on HN: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=10933288.
