NASA and the Toyota Problem, My take....

[AL Ursich]

I see today that NASA will be looking into the problem with the Toyota.

I have been thinking about it and here is my take on the problem and possible cause.

Static can do STRANGE things....

Saw the story on the news this morning that NASA will be helping Toyota find the problem with the run away cars.....

I have a lot of electronic experience being retired Navy Electronics Tech and having a high interest in Electronics and Radio Frequency or RF. I also spent 8 years with SONY doing everything from making Picture Tubes to fixing Play Stations units.

My gut feeling of why the problem is happening with the Toyota Cars is all related to "STATIC CHARGE". All the different materials used to build the car like plastic and rubber acting like a insulator. Two pieces of Metal and a insulator can cause the 2 pieces of metal or 2 wires or group of wires and a insulating material to become a big capacitor..... A Capacitor will hold a charge or difference in potential or voltage.
...
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Capacitor ...

Like shuffling your feet on a carpet and sticking your finger out and touching metal you get a "SNAP" or discharge.....

A Glass Picture Tube is made as a Big Capacitor.... In the manufacturing process, a robot paints carbon inside the picture tube funnel. When I was making Picture Tubes at Sony, my area had 2 Fanuc Robots with a 4 inch paint roller painting carbon on the outside of the picture tube. With the glass in the middle, the 2 carbon areas became a big Capacitor.... That is why a old TV turned off for a year and touch the Anode of the Picture Tube you get knocked on your BUTT..... The inside of the Carbon holds a charge.

Static in cars has been documented in 2 areas.... Plastic Truck Bed Liners.... A Metal Gas Can sitting in the bed of a Pickup Truck on the plastic bed liner with the steel bed of the truck under it builds up a positive charge in the Metal Gas Can. Swing the grounded Gas Pump Nozzle and touch the metal gas can and a spark jumps to the nozzle as the can or Capacitor is discharged... BIG BOOM normally follows.... Bed Liners should have a warning sign on each side warning to put the gas can on the ground.....

The Second Static In Cars is while the car is getting gas pumped into it you get back into your car and wait..... You now build up a charge on YOU like the shuffling the feet on the carpet.... You step out of the car now charged and with rubber shoes you walk up and do that "SNAP" thing as you go to grab the Gas Nozzle.... Big BOOM normally follows.... They say you should touch the metal of the car to GROUND yourself far away from the Nozzle and the gas fumes..... Or just DON'T GET IN THE CAR.....

There are some great Gas Station Videos on line showing this.....

OK... Back to the run away cars..... I believe it will be found that a Static Build up between DIFFERENT sections of the CAR and the Wiring AND the SHIELDING OF COMPUTERS with METAL will hold different charges or different Voltage Potentials causing the Computers to LOCK UP.

In the Car Case.... It will be One Computer Talking to another Computer and one "IGNORING" the other because the Ground Reference of the Computer is Raised to a Voltage Potential ABOVE the other.... Computers talk in Binary Language.... a 1 and a 0 or Zero... A High and a Low..... A Binary Capitol A is 01000001. That is low, high, low, low, low, low, low, high. ...

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Binary_numeral_system ...

http://www.tekmom.com/buzzwords/binaryalphabet.html ...

It takes 2 things for a computer to talk to another computer and it is called a Hand Shake Routine or in Human.... Outreaching Hand and a "How Are You" and another Human Outreaching Hand shaking it and saying "I am Fine".... That is a Hand Shake Routine and computers do it Thousands of times a second.... There are Timing Clocks in both computers and if the second Human was talking to another human in this example the handshake would only take place when the clock of the second human finished talking to the other person to listen and shake and respond with our example.

So back to the Toyota Cars.... I believe that is the Hand Shake Routine is being messed up between computers do to the Capacitive Charge of the different Metals and insulators of the car and when the computer is sending a "A" or 01000001 in binary and the other computer is seeing 11111111 or all HIGH.... This is because the Voltage reference is raised by the Capacitor Effect.... O' I forgot to mention Binary Logic Voltage Levels..... Back in the 70's when I first started playing around with Computers and Electronic Projects, The IC or Integrated Circuits or Chips were TTL or Transistor Transistor Logic ... http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Transis...ansistor_logic ... Where 1 and Zero was a 1 = 5 Volts DC and a 0 or Zero = Zero Volts DC or .02 volts DC to be exact... Later there were CMOS Chips or Complementary Metal Oxide Semiconductor... http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/CMOS ... As Computers got faster and faster it was decided that a smaller swing in voltage from the positive 5 volts to a Zero took TOO MUCH TIME.... So other "Standards were used with a lower voltage to speed things up.... Here is a Chart of Binary Logic to Voltage.... http://www.interfacebus.com/voltage_threshold.html ...

So to sum up this long RAINY DAY post to what is happening to the cars.... The Capacitor Voltage between the different parts of the CAR AND the Ground LOOP EFFECT are building up and preventing the computers from effectively communicating... It is like having a loud radio playing in the room and you trying to talk to someone..... Your mouth is moving but the receiver is overwhelmed by the loud radio not hearing you... With the Cars, the Computer is Overwhelmed by the Capacitive Voltages and the Car Goes OUT OF CONTROL AND CRASHES and the voltages DISSIPATE or the Radio Stops PLAYING. Now the person can again hear what you are saying as the Loud Music is GONE.... Or the Static is GONE.... That is WHY they cannot pin point the problem. As the Capacitor Parts of the car discharge and everything goes back to normal, ALL the tests show everything NORMAL....

SO until NASA attach's Data BUS Monitoring and logging Equipment to the Car or Cars AND reproduces the same STATIC CHARGES the problem won't be found..... Static and Ground Loop is a elusive problem.

That is my take on the Runaway Cars.... and my name is AL Ursich, Shohola, PA.... 3/30/2010....

[Greg Peterson]

I like the theory. We'll see what they find.

[Mitchell Andrus]

So..... it'll boil down to a lack of proper testing... for static electricity. If static charges are found to have an effect, that makes sense.
.

[Lee Schierer]

I think is RFI (radio Frequency interference), it used to be a common problem on 18 wheelers with anti locking brake systems. RFI would account for the random and non-repeatable nature of the problem. Unless properly shielded radio broadcasts can do strange things to electronics. There is a whole industry to make RFI filters for circuits to protect them from random radio signals. There are thousands of sources for radio signals in use today and many are on the highways.

Years ago, I had a CB radio and was driving to Buffalo, NY from Erie. I had been chatting on my CB radio when a car started passing me. Just as he got even with me I noted he had a radar detector on his dash. About the same time I keyed my radio to talk and his radar warning light flashed red and he hit the brakes and pulled in behind me. As He started to pass again I keyed the mike and his red warning light came on. I did this about a dozen times before I exited and he stayed on the road. Obviously being close to my transmitter overpowered his radar detector circuits and caused the false alarms. He must have thought there were dozens of cops in that area that night.

Just his past week twice in nearly the same area the radio in my SUV changed stations on its own. It changed from 91.3 to 91.5 both times. Yet I drive that same route every work day twice a day with no problems most of the time. The weather was clear and dry the one time and rainy the next. RFI is every where.

[Curt Harms]

I can't speak with Al's knowledge on this but I think about something I do know. Most airplanes manufactured today have electric pitch trim. If that electric control fails and stays engaged, pitch forces can increase to where it's tough to manually overpower-I remember one being 150 lbs. of force on the yoke. Because of this risk, there are usually 3 to 5 different ways to stop pitch runaway, different switches & circuits, pulling circuit breakers etc. It seems like controlling a car's acceleration is just as safety critical. Perhaps a red button on the dash or wheel hooked to a solenoid (no clever circuits) or valve & cable setup capable of cutting off the fuel supply RIGHT NOW in the event of a runaway? You'd lose power steering, power brakes etc. but you should be able to steer off the road and get stopped.

[Pat Germain]

Those are very interesting theories. And they do make a lot of sense. Still, I don't think Toyota problems have anything to do with the electronic throttle. Lots of cars have this type of throttle. I doubt the Toyota throttle would be vulnerable to static electricity or RF interference while not a single other electronic throttle would have this problem. I drive a VW Jetta. It has an electronic throttle. In seven years of driving I've never, not once, had a problem of any kind with the throttle. Yes, theoretically, it's possible. But I still doubt the connection.

Rather, I think some Toyotas do in fact have a problem with the pedal sticking. I think this problem caused some tragic accidents and deaths. But mostly, I think people just hit the wrong pedal and panicked. Recent studies proved this happens far more frequently than anyone would have imagined.

Since the problem Toyota cars are extremely popular, there's a whole lot of them on the road. Thus, when you have a very large number of drivers behind the wheel of a few very popular models, there are going to be more incidents of people hitting the wrong pedal and panicking. Combine this with an actual pedal problem, add a very generous dose of media hyperbole, stir in some opportunistic attorneys and you've got the current situation.

Dollars to doughnuts, NASA won't find a blasted thing. Just like when the NHTSA investigated the "runaway Audi" problem years ago. It's also interesting that NASA was given this problem and not NHTSA. Likely, someone is trying to help NASA in times of serious budget cuts. There are also people who think NHTSA has been too cozy with auto manufacturers. So, it's probably a good idea to use NASA.

[John Pratt]

It never ceases to amaze me the level and breadth of knowledge and experience you can find on this forum.

[Rod Sheridan]

NASA eh?

So are they expecting an O ring or a metric/imperial units problem:D



Just kidding, however it's amazing the scope of the issue. Who would ever have predicted that a seemingly simple problem would be this wide spread, or difficult to diagnose?

Working for a high tech company, I occasionally see these sort of issues, an apparently simple problem can be difficult to solve.

Regards, Rod.

[Jerome Hanby]

Why do I get the feeling this will morph into a discussion about static electricity build up in PVC piping with dust collection:D

[Dan Friedrichs]

We all know that a 1 hogshead long piece of 120mm PVC pipe will only build 2millicoulombs of charge per fortnight!

No offense to the OP, but I suspect that the thousands of trained engineers at Toyota have probably investigated these elementary possibilities. This is just wild conjecture.

[Chuck Wintle]

We all know that a 1 hogshead long piece of 120mm PVC pipe will only build 2millicoulombs of charge per fortnight!

No offense to the OP, but I suspect that the thousands of trained engineers at Toyota have probably investigated these elementary possibilities. This is just wild conjecture.
I suspect you are right! Likely it is a supplier problem not testing the electronic modules for all conditions.

[Kent A Bathurst]

Now, y'all can laugh if you want to, but next time I ride in my friend's Camry, I gonna be wearing my old tin-foil hat - it'll stop them cosmic rays dead in their tracks. Guaranteed. I occasionally flash back to when it helped a lot in the late 60's....at least, I think it did......not all that clear of a memory..........but the narcs were never actually just around the corner, so it must have worked, and they couldn't have really been monitoring my brainwaves, right?

Plus - if you've read all those other threads, you should know by now that static electricity won't build up in dust that is generated by a SS - that's some magic dust right there.

[AL Ursich]

Quote:
Originally Posted by Jerome Hanby
Why do I get the feeling this will morph into a discussion about static electricity build up in PVC piping with dust collection

Well that is actually where this idea was generated from.... A Discussion about vacuuming the wood chips out of a CarveWright Machine with the power still on mid carve. Many a user using a shop vac and a cheap plastic hose have zapped the computer with static....

CarveWright Forum... My other home....

"No offense to the OP, but I suspect that the thousands of trained engineers at Toyota have probably investigated these elementary possibilities. This is just wild conjecture."

Yes, it is Elementary and "A Wild Conjecture" No offense taken.


Over the years I have seen some wild answers to Technical Problems.....

When I was attending a Navy Radar School in San Diego in 92 on what is called the MK 92 Mod 6 system. They had a problem that didn't make sense.

Over the years of teaching the Radar and Students attaching probes to the back of circuit board sockets making measurements had finally broken this little white wire. It was too short to re-attach. The Instructor knew the TO: and FROM: location of the wire and replaced the wire with a new 3 inch long wire that was colored blue. The rest of the wires were white.

The problem started after the blue wire was placed in the unit. A second instructor inspected the fix and it was proper....

The problem went on for months.... One day the Designer of the Radar was in San Diego and visited the school. A instructor mentioned the problem and the Designer went to look. He opened the drawer looked in the back of the circuit board sockets and saw the blue wire.... He stands up and a Smile came to his face.... He asked about the blue wire.... The Instructor that installed it explained the fix.... The Designer's Smile got BIGGER..... Followed by a SNICKER....

The Designer said that even though the to: and from: destinations of the wire were 3 inches apart he had used 14 feet of wire to make that connection...

There were 3 Computers in that drawer and the strobe or timing cycle needed to be 1, 2, 3, letting each computer talk one after each other as they all talked on a common data bus. So first one talks, then the next, then the last.... To make that "Delay in time" the designer used 3 inches, 7 feet, and 14 feet for the "Delay" between the 3 computers. Taking advantage of the Microseconds of delay in the 7 and 14 feet of wire.... By using the 3 inch jumper between computer 2 and 3 that made computer 2 and 3 talk at the same time. The normally 14 feet of wire was now 7 feet to both computers. Now the computer strobe or timing pulse was computer 1, computer 2&3 then computer 2&3 again... Computer 2 and 3 were talking on the data bus at the SAME TIME.... The 14 foot wire was reconnected and everything was back to normal.... Pretty Wild....

I have spent the last 30 years of my life troubleshooting electronics....

The Last 2 years I was in the Navy I worked at a Microwave Antenna Manufacturing Company in San Diego nights and weekends. I did Calibration and repair on equipment used to make the QualComm Omnitrak Antennas and other RF Gear. This company made the early Omnitrak Antennas that looked like a Taco under the white dome on a 18 Wheeler.


Another theory I have that could be causing the Run Away Cars is a 18 Wheel Trucks with a RADAR Collision Avoidance System.... The Randomness of having a 18 Wheel Truck on your back door with a powerful Radar raising the hair on the back of your neck has crossed my mind.... The RF could be overloading the Computers..... But that still comes back to why wouldn't it happen with other models....

That is why the Capacitive Static Effect is "Car Model" related.... A function of the car design.....

Yes, I have too much time on my hands... Where did you get that Foil Hat.... Might need it if I go out on the road with 18 wheel trucks on the road.... LOL....

AL

[AL Ursich]

I was a Navy Electronics Instructor for 3 years so I try to find real world things to help explain how electronics works..... I taught the MK 68 Mod 19 Digital Upgrade System mentioned at the bottom.

Students loved this demo....

I taught this thing called a Ring Laser Gyro.... Picture a triangle with a double ended laser on the bottom of the triangle.

It fires the laser out of both ends at the same time. At the corner of the triangle was a mirror that directed the beam up toward the point much like a Laser Engraver.... The beam bounces off the top and back down to the laser to a receiver.

If both beams hit the receiver at the same time then no motion took place.... I would hold a Plastic Triangle from a Pool Table in front of me.... Tell the class that I just fired the laser beam then jump 3 feet to the side still holding the plastic triangle. I would then say that one beam hit the receiver faster then the other because I moved to the left.... That Out of Phase is a indicator of motion. 3 Ring Laser Gyros and 3 Accelerometers and you have a navigational system.....

On the Navy System, turn it on and 30 seconds later it gave you a latitude readout based on it feeling the earth turning..... Pretty Cool.....

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sperry_Marine

The Sperry Marine Ring Laser Inertial Navigator
The most substantial developments in ship's navigation in the latter half of the twentieth century were the introduction of the Global Positioning System (GPS), and the development of the Ring Laser Gyroscope based inertial navigation system.

The Sperry Corporation had developed the MK-16 Ring laser gyroscope (RLG) based navalized stable element for aircraft carrier use in the late seventies and early eighties. This system was primarily used for the aircraft landings and provided a stable source for ship's attitude information to the glide slope system. The MK-16 also found use on the USS Belknap (prototype) and Charles F. Adams-class destroyers as a stable source for the Mk 68 Mod 19 Gun Fire Control system (digital upgrade).

I wish this picture was available when I was teaching the system but it was classified at the time.... I taught this in 1986

http://edu.nightlase.com.au/lasergyro

I love Technology.... My Last Navy Ship the USS Buchanan DDG-14 used this system. I decommissioned this ship in 91 and our Digital Upgrade System went to another ship.

AL

Picture of me in 85 as a student on the control panel of the Great Lakes, IL School system. I made Chief at the end of the school and they asked me to stay and teach it... Loved Teaching...

[Paul Ryan]

Al,

You put a lot of though into the toyota problem but I doubt it is static electricity. I am not exactly sure how toyota runs there throttles but most auto systems aren't that complicated. It usually isn't binary language or anything like that. Really they just us potentiometers. The foot pedal will have a sensor with a 5v referece signal. That 5v will change, usually drop the more the throttle is opened. The ECM sees the voltage drop and opens the throttle body along with adjusting timing, more fuel, etc, etc. The throttle body butterfly is controled by an electric motor. Static electricity could be causing problems but I doubt it. Because the communication isn't that complicated, it is really simple. What made the fly by wire possible was the switch to CAN bus in and around 2004, it is federally mandated now, every car must use CAN. All CAN is, is a higher speed communication system in the automobile. Basically like highspeed internet, instead of dial-up, the old bus systems. But as far as I know all of the manufacturers still use voltage to communicate no binary language. And if static electicity was causing problems it would basically shut everything down, because of the extremely high voltages of static. So I really doubt that is the problem.

[Ken Fitzgerald]

Al,

I have seen static electricity, poor grounds and low relative humidity cause some serious and strange problems in my 41 years in electronics.

I saw a shorted 3phase ac connector ( all 3 phases shorted together due to a lightning strike) that would produce a corona ball everytime the 3-phase circuit breaker was re-engaged. The corona ball would shoot out of the equipment...bounce on the floor and out the open door. I saw it 3 times......that was enough until we found the cause.


I have seen static electricity caused by a poor or broken ground wire cause a static build up so intense it would arc through the baked on paint on a rotating frame used on a CT scanner. Initially I could just hear it. Later I got smart...removed all the covers from the gantry and turned out the lights....then you could see the flash when it arced. Closer inspection of the area where the two pieces of frame were bolted together revealed pin holes in the paint. This happened because of a missing ground wire in the harness going to this frame.

I resolved static electricity problems that prevented two CT scanners....1` in El Paso, TX and 1 in Moses Lake, WA.....from scanning patients for weeks prior to my arrival. In both incidences, I sat down at the control console....I tapped my foot once and drew an arc to the keyboard.....tap it twice and I could draw a visible arc from my hand to the keyboard.

You could run diagnotics programs on various parts of the system and they would fail 90% of the time but with different failure codes each time.

The first case in El Paso, I asked the engineering department if they had a sling psychometer??? (wet bulb/dry bulb) to check relative humidity. They had one and we measured the relative humidity at around 15%. Manufacturer's specs are 50% non-condensing. The department head and I went to Sears and bought a couple home style rotating foam belt humidifiers and put them in the CT computer room. He left instructions with his staff to not let those humidifiers run dry overnight. By the next morning the humidity was up to 35%. They ran patients with no problems.

Some years later I was working for a different company and walked into a similar circumstance in Moses Lake, WA. I looked like a real hero when I was there a matter of minutes and diagnosed the problem. The hospital installed a room humidifier and the next day all was well.

In both cases the hospitals brought in an HVAC engineer and had a humidifier spec'd for their HVAC for that suite of rooms.

Point being...you can't accurately predict what static electricity will do based on my experience.


Paul.....BTW...CAN buss systems are quite common on a lot of the new digital x-ray systems too.

[Matt Meiser]

Perhaps a red button on the dash

I saw this on a test vehicle an engineer for an auto company was driving when they were testing fly-by-wire. It look to be just an off-the-shelf e-stop button. Looked so cool--I thought they should make it standard, but then it just screamed "hit me."


Why do I get the feeling this will morph into a discussion about static electricity build up in PVC piping with dust collection:D

You've probably found the problem--every time someone drives by a woodworker's house who's used pvc....


I saw a shorted 3phase ac connector ( all 3 phases shorted together due to a lightning strike) that would produce a corona ball everytime the 3-phase circuit breaker was re-engaged. The corona ball would shoot out of the equipment...bounce on the floor and out the open door. I saw it 3 times......that was enough until we found the cause.

Once to see the problem, 2 more because it was so cool? :D

[Paul Ryan]

Ken,

That is interesting, CAN bus in x-ray equipment, what for?


In cars and trucks they do use binary communication but that is between computers. Such as BCM (body controler) communicating with the ABS or PCM (powertrain controler). There are 50 different modules in cars but only the important are on the CAN many times. The important modules are PCM, BCM, ABS. If toyota wires their pedal sensor to the BCM and communicates to the PCM over the bus, then binary communication would be used. But I really doubt they do that, It would make more sense to send the signal directly to the PCM, eliminating the lag time, processing, and possible communication failures by going through the BCM.

[Ken Fitzgerald]

Paul,

It is used for communication between the different computers and for contolling different segments of the systems that are relatively dumb...ie controlling motor drive amplifiers. Even the relatively dumb modules have computers in them but often just function on firmware.

[Ken Fitzgerald]

Once to see the problem, 2 more because it was so cool? :D

Matt,

This happened on a precision approach radar used in air traffic control. We had a thunderstorm go through the area and had a lot of equipment go offline. When I finally got to this radar, the generator had not automatically kicked in and picked up the load.

I arrived on site...there was no lights in the power trailer, so I had to leave the door open to see to reset the breaker.

The 1st time I reset it, I saw the ball of fire....I couldn't believe my eyes.

I was neither responsible for nor trained to work on the generator. I had called the engineman who was reponsible for the generator. He called the radar and asked me to come an get him( We were on a remote runway and it required a vehicle that could communicate with ATC via radio.) I picked him up and I told him what had happened. He played down the incident.

We arrived there....he made a cursory check of the generator and told me to go ahead and reset the breaker....same scenario.....no lights....door open.....throw the handle on the breaker......ball of fire....hits the floor and out the door. He heard me screaming......he came into the trailer...."What is wrong with you?" I repeated my previous story....he said ....well I can't repeat it here due to the profanity restrictions but he told me to get out of his way. He threw the breaker. I had an instant convert. He no longer doubted my integrity!

That's when we shut power off outside at the external power stump and started troubleshooting primary power.

The crash crew was in their crash truck about 100 feet away and had seen the lightning strike the ground some 1/4 mile away near the edge of the runway. It ran into the radar via the AC power cables and found it's way to ground on this huge 4 pin cannon plug. I am a rather large guy. The 4 pins in that plug were bigger in diameter than my thumb and it had melted all of them. It turned the insulating plastic used in that plug into carbon and the melted copper shorted all 3 phases together. It welded the pieces of the plug and jack togther. We ended up cutting the entire assembly out of the wall of the trailer and making a temporary repair. Later we replaced the entire panel in the trailer.

[Ken Fitzgerald]

Al,

I have seen some really interesting problems as a result of RFI too! Here too, this is generally a result of bad grounding / RFI shielding.

[Pat Germain]

Somewhat off-topic, but we are in the Off-Topic forum...

When I was in the Navy, we sometimes used a portable fan called a "Red Devil Blower". It was typically used to clear smoke from a space.

When using the Red Devil Blower, we were required to attach it to a good ground using a very hefty cable and clip; similar to a jumper cable. I always thought that was really stupid considering the blower was air-powered. Then I learned those blowers could generate a downright dangerous static charge. Apparently, many a sailor was knocked to the deck after not properly grounding a Red Devil Blower.

[Matt Meiser]

What do you use for ground on a ship? Is the steel structure treated as the ground reference?

[AL Ursich]

Yes, I remember the Red Devil Air and AC Blowers.... 20 years 27 countries :) 3 Tin Cans, 10 years of sea duty.

Paul, You could be right too....

Until the "burnt O' Ring" caused by "Cold" is found and NASA makes the report we will wait and see....

If I had typed into a forum that "COLD" was the cause of the problem I would have been..... Laughed at too....

A few years ago NASA lost contact with a Space Probe. Some time later it was found that a component used in Transmitters were failing in the RF Industry. A Common Power Transistor.... Then someone looked to see if that transistor was used in the Probe Transmitter.... Eureke.... It was..... Now NASA had the possible cause for the Communication failure...

If anyone had a CRT Style Computer Monitor stop working in the early 2001 it might have been from a large batch of defective Capacitors. It started with a little Industrial Espionage with a group of Employees in the Capacitor Industry leaving a company developing a new formula for electrolytic Capacitors. They went to another country and brought the secret forumala.... Well they got it "Almost" right.... The result was over time the chemical reacted to produce a gas that caused the capacitor to bulge and short and blow out.... The country making the Capacitors was selling them all over the world.... Sony even had used them.... When working at the Philly Service Center I had a open ended invitation for Night Time Overtime as a group of Tech's replaced the known bad capacitors in hundreds of monitors from warehouse stock....

And for Paul or any of the other readers that I just pegged there "Bull Poop" Meter....

http://www.badcaps.net/pages.php?vid=4

My Step Father has a 1950's Ford 612 Tractor that we use to plow snow. Being a 6 volt system when the snow flew, it would refuse to start... No Spark.... My Step Father being a Lifetime Mechanic replaced the Points and Condenser or Capacitor and away it went.... He did this 3 times.... Putting the old points and cap back in from the first 3 times and the tractor would not start... Off to the Ford Tractor Garage and another set of points and Condensor.... Same thing.... One start and never start again..... So he is complaining to me as we use the Snow Blower to do a very long driveway... I tell him to go to NAPA and buy the parts as I bet the Condenser is BAD because of a problem I was reading about on the Internet..... His BS Meter went off...... But he DID buy the next set from NAPA..... End of Starting Problem..... SO he is PISSED.... Puts a old Condenser back in... NO START..... So the Kid was right.... :) LOL :)


In my last years in the Navy, Retiring in 95, I had heard about the Fluke 77 Multimeter Recall.... After the Designer had finished and tested the final design of the latest meter he presented his project to Fluke Management. The Bean Counters at Fluke handed the design to a Rookie Engineer and offered him a Cash Bonus to find any electronic components that he thought he could eliminate and saving in production costs.
Not to be out done and to make a good impression he eliminated a few Chip Capacitors the size of this letter N you are reading. Into production goes Thousands of Meters..... Then the Deaths start happening..... It was found that if a Tech attached the Positive or Red Lead of a Fluke 77 to a AC Power Source OVER 300 volts then attached the BLACK or Negative lead reading AC OR DC Voltage over 300 Volts... The Meter would sometimes indicate 000..... This is NOT GOOD..... Many DEATHS happened in Industrial Environments and it was usually blamed on the USER..... He was DEAD and couldn't tell the Investigator that the Free-kin Meter said 000..... The Power WAS OFF.....

Someone said is was a BAD METER...... (Capacitive Effect.... O'..... No) The NAY Sayers said... LOOK.... The Meter reads FINE..... Your Wrong....

The Word was out..... Watch out using that FLUKE 77..... Then it was finally discovered that placing a positive lead on first then the negative lead that the meter could read ZERO VOLTS when measuring over 300 volts AC or DC......... Back to FLUKE....

The Designer was called in and said..... "WHO REMOVED THE CAPACITORS"...... They are there to prevent this problem......

A Safety Recall went into effect and meters received a "R" melted into the end of the Serial Number after they were fixed at the Factory....

So I retire from the Navy in 95 and Off to Sony in San Diego making the 17 inch CRT's for Computer Monitors. Two years later I am tired of the Hot 12 hour Factory shifts and apply for a nice cushy job in the Air Conditioned Calibration Lab.... I beat out 35 people for the job only missing one electronic question, smoking the interview... So Sony sends me to FLUKE Calibration School in LA and that is where I hear the details of the recall from the Instructor... The first thing I do when I get back is run the serial numbers of the 450 or so Fluke Multimeter's in the complex of 4000+ people.

I find at least a hundred meters in the Serial Number Range and quickly get the word out..... Not a single one had been fixed.... Sony used 208VAC for most of the Industrial Process but had many 450 VAC systems too.... It was lucky no one had been killed...

For the "BS" Meter..... http://www.hanford.gov/RL/?page=750&parent=748

Fixing Electronics and Thinking outside the box for over 30 years....

The older I get the Better I WAS.... :)

In looking up the Fluke Recall website, I saw pages and pages of new Fluke Safety Recall's... WOW..... Some said the "Made in China" meters were at fault.... Ouch !!!!

AL


US Navy Retired
FCC(SW)

[Brian Ashton]

Matt,

This happened on a precision approach radar used in air traffic control. We had a thunderstorm go through the area and had a lot of equipment go offline. When I finally got to this radar, the generator had not automatically kicked in and picked up the load.

I arrived on site...there was no lights in the power trailer, so I had to leave the door open to see to reset the breaker.

The 1st time I reset it, I saw the ball of fire....I couldn't believe my eyes.

I was neither responsible for nor trained to work on the generator. I had called the engineman who was reponsible for the generator. He called the radar and asked me to come an get him( We were on a remote runway and it required a vehicle that could communicate with ATC via radio.) I picked him up and I told him what had happened. He played down the incident.

We arrived there....he made a cursory check of the generator and told me to go ahead and reset the breaker....same scenario.....no lights....door open.....throw the handle on the breaker......ball of fire....hits the floor and out the door. He heard me screaming......he came into the trailer...."What is wrong with you?" I repeated my previous story....he said ....well I can't repeat it here due to the profanity restrictions but he told me to get out of his way. He threw the breaker. I had an instant convert. He no longer doubted my integrity!

That's when we shut power off outside at the external power stump and started troubleshooting primary power.

The crash crew was in their crash truck about 100 feet away and had seen the lightning strike the ground some 1/4 mile away near the edge of the runway. It ran into the radar via the AC power cables and found it's way to ground on this huge 4 pin cannon plug. I am a rather large guy. The 4 pins in that plug were bigger in diameter than my thumb and it had melted all of them. It turned the insulating plastic used in that plug into carbon and the melted copper shorted all 3 phases together. It welded the pieces of the plug and jack togther. We ended up cutting the entire assembly out of the wall of the trailer and making a temporary repair. Later we replaced the entire panel in the trailer.


So let me get this straight you were creating tiny (relatively speaking) ball lightning. Sounds like a great party trick :D

[AL Ursich]

Quote:
Originally Posted by Brian Ashton
So let me get this straight you were creating tiny (relatively speaking) ball lightning. Sounds like a great party trick

OK... Another Story.... Couldn't Resist..... I should write a book...

In my last 4 years in the Navy I worked at a office in San Diego called MOTU-5 or Mobile Technical Unit Five. We would be called to fix ships electronics when the guys on board the ship couldn't find the problem....

Went out on a Radar Trouble call with my NAVSEA Buddy who had spent time at the Factory on the MK 92 Mod 2 Radar. We arrive at the ship and the Tech takes us to the Radar Room. I am standing in front of the Radar Transmitter and see a drawer open slightly.... Think nothing of it... So the Tech fires up the Radar and we are in a big Aluminum Room with the hatch or door closed to save the Air Conditioning...

As soon as the Radar goes to Transmit the Florescent Lights in the room start Strobing and the neon bulbs on the end of the blown fuse indicators on the radar and switchboard start to GLOW.....

Lucky for ME.... The NAVSEA Tech had seen this before at the factory and quickly hit the OFF button returning the room from it's DISCO Effect to normal. The NAVSEA Tech opened the drawer that was partially open in front of me and we all saw that "Another" Tech had pulled a part from the Waveguide, a TR or Transmit Receiver ON OFF Switch Tube and had taken it to another ship to try it on another radar.... He failed to "Tag Out" the Radar... So this left the Waveguide or the path that the radar energy travels to the radar dish open. Like running your microwave oven with the doors open..... And we know what a microwave oven does to meat..... Well, my "Boys" took the hit.... With the drawer being waist high..... No Kids for me ever again.... It heated them very quick like spending too much time in a HOT TUB..... The Life of a Tech....


AL

[Ken Fitzgerald]

Al,

Here's a static story for you.

When I got out I went to work for a company that at the time produced CT scanners among other things. These CT scanners put up to 140 kilovolts DC to the x-ray tube. About 9 months later, the company had a high voltage specialist killed working on a high voltage power supply. OSHA almost shut the company down. I along with 9 others were brought back to HQ and specially trained to work on HV. Eventually a total of 40 of us were trained and annually we had to go back for a special school and recertification.

I flew into LA one time to help another FE work on an apparent HV problem at Century City. In the process of troubleshooting, I turned off all power to the power supply and we removed the high voltage cables from the x-ray tube. I used a special grounding rod and discharged the cables just trying to be safe. I taped the two HV cables out into the air so we could bring HV upto 60 KV and see if we got an arc...we shouldn't. That is a prescribed troubleshooting procedure. AT the time, both I and the other guy smoked so after discharging the cables we went outside and had a cigarette. We came back in and I pointed at the end of one of the high voltage cables and told the guy "We will discharge them again. Don't ever take it for granted that due to the capacitance of the cable's insulation that they haven't developed a static charge!"

About that time a large spark flew from the cable to the finger I was pointing at it. I almost got knocked down by the shock.

The guy told me I didn't have to demonstrate it to him.....he would have taken my word for it!:eek::rolleyes:

[Jim Becker]

Interestingly, a recent news article (that I can't seem to find again) indicated that there are actually similar problems with some other brands/models including at a higher incidence than with the Toyotas. While I'd never want safety to be overlooked, I wonder if, perhaps, the press has been a little selective in how they have been portraying the issue with so much focus on Toyota and not including a whole lot of consideration for parallel problems elsewhere.

[AL Ursich]

Here is a interesting Counter Theory from another guy. Some GREAT Points.... I am familiar with data transfer using differential out of phase inputs. It prevents a Arc Welder near a data line from causing a error.

First off, may I say, Al has many interesting facts, and some good knowledge about electricity and electronics. My background is similar, but not exactly the same, and thus I have some different thoughts. Not to criticize Al; rather to build on what he's said. Communications in (electrically) noisy environments usually work with twisted wire pairs connected to differential amps, which ignore floating voltage differences, and use only the difference between the /- signal lines. Thus the static voltage difference is not likely to be the cause of the problem; at least not in the sense that Al proposes. The CAN protocol (see wikipedia) is commonly (not universally) used in cars for sensor and processor communications. It's designed to be 'fault-tolerant', though nothing is ever perfect. It was actually designed for use in cars, and has been around for over a decade. Still, the idea of an electrically induced 'glitch', due to noise or static is a strong possibility. I've spent much time testing real-time systems, trying to reproduce 'one-in-a-million' faults: things that work perfectly in a simulator environment often fail when you sell thousands (millions) of units, and the systems operate in the 'real world'. It's just impossible to duplicate millions of hours of real-world use in a lab. This is true of any system, not just computers. I think it was the Air Force that set the standard for life critical software (any software that, if it failed, would be fatal) at 1 in 10^^12, or 1 failure in 10^^12 seconds of operation, or less than 1 failure in over 30,000 years of operation. (You can't afford to reboot your F-14 at Mach 2 in the middle of a dogfight!) An extremely high number, but bear in mind that there might be 10 or 100 systems (e.g., in a space station), any one of which might fail and be life-threatening. It's really tough, and expensive, even to attempt to prove that a software system is that reliable! My suspicion is that in the race to provide more and more 'features', better performance, the software got bloated, and under some combination of circumstances (possibly one of which is related to Al's idea of static interfering with data lines), a program fails. I would like to see NASA prove their mettle by coming up with some answers.

[Bruce King]

I have 30 years experience in troubleshooting electronics and control software. While the hardware may have some random intermittant issues it should not matter since the software/firmware should be designed to handle all failure modes that may occur. The pressure is very high for the engineers to find the problem, this is why they keep finding "answers" but not all of them yet. They will most likely not find a smoking gun but will issue more modifications, mostly to the software. I can guarantee the NASA engineers will want to scrap the toyota software and start over. It's a common reaction and sometimes reasonable since its harder to fix some software than to just rewrite it. Some software engineers can not think into the next realm of anti-ambiguity and fault tolerant operation they just work towards the goal of making something "work". I spent many years repairing and adjusting things to overcome these oversights.

Here is some good info on it
http://www.popularmechanics.com/automotive/how_to/4347704.html