Unintended Acceleration - Find the Cause

wwest

We stopped using optical encounters back in the mid-eighties, used printed circuit resolvers instead. The ink printed, deposited, on the glass of the optical encounter wheel would begin to flake off after so many revolutions.

plekto

Last I knew there was NOTHING "mission critical" about a game controller...

Lowest common denominator insofar as cheap, CHEAP, CHEAP...!

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Throttle_position_sensor
The vast majority of vehicles on the road since the mid 80s have potentiometer designs and while the TPS units do fail, they are easy to fix and dead-simple to design safety systems for and around. In fact, this was the norm for *every* vehicle that ever had a TPS unit on it until Toyota and a few others decided to try to "upgrade" them to other types by pretty much just designing something that could be dropped into the same bolt-holes and screwed down in place. ie - not a whole new system from the ground-up.

box1car1

NASA missed the fact that an RF generator was in operation ON BOARD at
least ONE UA vehicle- When Mrs. Rhonda Smith testified in Congress that
"God Intervened" to drop her vehicle speed when she phoned her husband
on her CELL PHONE (which BTW operates at 14" RF wavelength to hook up
with any 7" half wave wire protruding into the cockpit, can we say CRUISE
CONTROL here?) No One wanted to ask the OBVIOUS QUESTION did they?
"What ph.no. did you dial, was it BEFORE or AFTER 'God Intervened'?"
Answer- no one would buy a Toyota if you can't use your all important CP
and last thing gov't needed was another car company to bail out- DuH

wwest

There is a fly, horse fly, in your ointment..theory.

If I remember correctly Mrs. Smith said she saw the CC light on just after she entered the highway and then turned it off. Long before the cell phone was in use and seeming the CC came on of its own accord.

And quite obviously the cell phone call was initiated quite some time AFTER the UA began.

frankok1

I do believe almost all Government Motors vehicles use potentiometers and they have had very few cases of UA per vehicle sold; e.g. see
http://blogs.consumerreports.org/cars/2009/12/sudden-unintended-acceleration-sua- -analysis-2008-toyota-lexus-ford-gm.html

GM does have a much better error checks for comparisons between the two sensors.

wwest

According to the factory shop/repair manuals and just as Dr. Gilbert confirmed, the firmware cross checking of the two hall effect sensors is flawed. Not a sensor problem, just another bit of stupidity on the part of the NipponDenso, Denso US, engineering team.

srs_49

I wouldn't call it stupidity. More a case of hindsight always being 20-20.

plekto

The issue is that they wanted a simple replacement part that could be dropped into existing designs and replace the (then current) potentiometer based TPS units. From a manufacturing perspective, this probably seemed like a great idea. It would to most managers and owners of any product line(they generally don't sweat the math and are more "idea" people", after all). A "better", "more reliable" component that you could drop in place/swap out the for old one on the assembly lines. No re-tooling, and a few changes to the existing code.

This is almost certainly what happened. The TPS is a minor minor part of the overall car design and to a typical manager or design team, it's simply another part like a fuel pump or a brake booster. Fit the new "upgraded" part, tweak the code a bit, and ship it out the door. Get it done in a few weeks and there you go. Same as dozens of parts that they upgrade behind the scenes every year.

But there's a huge lurking problem. What works with a potentiometer-based sensor in terms of reliability and safety simply won't work for a hall effect sensor. You need a ground-up redesign of the entire system and code. Just like when you went from cables to a TPS years ago. Potentiometer-based systems aren't inherently fail-safe either. They were designed to be that way over 20+ years. Toyota probably (no, almost certainly) did a basic risk assessment scenario and figured that the chances were statistically too low to warrant the cost of a total re-design for just one component.

I can see it now.
Engineer: "There's a huge problem in that the system isn't truly fail-safe."

Management:"Thank you for your concern. We've determined that it's not worth the time and expense to plan for something that is unlikely to ever happen. We feel that the changes to the code solve this issue adequately."

Engineer: "Someone could get hurt or worse. This really needs to be dealt with."

Management: "We cannot stop production at this point to fix one minor issue that will likely never happen. You concern has been noted." (ie - end of discussion, go back to your cubicle or fact the consequences)

Now, for those of use who have any computer or engineering troubleshooting or design background, this is the exact time that you stick your neck out and re-double your efforts to prove that you know your tech and management is wrong. This exact exchange (almost word for word) has happened to most of us at least once in our lives on some project, in fact.

Problem:
Given the workplace environment in a typical Japanese company, this last step is extremely unlikely. Management says "thank you very much for your concern" and the worker goes back to their cubicle and "forgets" about it. Sticking your neck out just simply isn't done.

EDIT: Short version of events:
- Toyota wants a more reliable TPS. With the idea of it being something that can be swapped in to replace the existing component.(like a "better A/C compressor").
- Toyota gets such a device built for it.
- Toyota changes the code to make it all work.
- The fail-safe system that was designed around a potentiometer is now broken and isn't truly fail-safe any more. Though it is "safe" by normal standards - just not "fail-safe". It's just some code now that's working as a patch.
- Analysis yields no problems as it is looking for errors in the code and basic functional aspects of the system and not for fail-safe compliance.

As far as I know, virtually none of the auto manufacturers are designing their systems from the ground-up to utilize hall effect and/or optical sensors but are instead bootstrapping the things onto the existing potentiometer-designed framework.

wwest

Within the automotive industry do you know of any potentiometer based sensor systems, especially the pre-2000 ones, that included redundancy, a second sensor used to verify the validity of the first...?

Off hand I could not say that I do. My Ford Aerostar's TPS uses a potentiometer, a single one. The only redundancy I've seen used with potentiometer sensors is a dual wiper/contact set internally to the "pot" itself.

Given that ALL of the hall effect sensors I currently know about are DUALS, a primary and secondary sensor for failsafe redundancy, it seems to me that the transition from potentiometers to hall effect REQUIRED a total rewrite of the control firmware.

srs_49

As far as I know, virtually none of the auto manufacturers are designing their systems from the ground-up to utilize hall effect and/or optical sensors but are instead bootstrapping the things onto the existing potentiometer-designed framework

Automakers aren't the only ones who did this.

The AWQ-10 radar was designed by Westinghouse in the early 60's to go onto the F-4 Phantom fighter. Back in those days, since things like MIL-Std 1553, Ethernet and other interface standards were far off in the future, many of the boxes that comprised the AWG-10 were interconnected with 26 VAC signals.

Then in the late 70's or early 80's, an effort was started to upgrade the AWQ-10 electronics using the latest and greatest analog and digital silicon devices. Only problem was the government did not have the funding to upgrade the entire radar in one fell swoop. So they started with one box one year, another box the next, etc. Because of this, the new designs had to be compatible with the original 26 VAC interfaces that were used in the original design, so that they could be retrofitted into existing radars.

So when the upgrade program was done, you had a bunch of state-of-the-art electronic boxes talking to each other using 20 or 30 year old interfaces :P :shades:

plekto

Within the automotive industry do you know of any potentiometer based sensor systems, especially the pre-2000 ones, that included redundancy, a second sensor used to verify the validity of the first...?

This is the interesting part. A potentiometer can only fail in one of three ways(intermittent/sticky connection, dead, or shorted). This means that all the computer that is monitoring it has to do is:
1: verify that it is receiving a proper voltage within the established range(typically you'd set it up so that min and max are outside the throttle's ranges).
2: verify that the voltage is moving along its values cleanly and consistently.

The first is simple to design a self-checking circuit around and does not require actual physical redundancy/two TPS units. The system that is checking the input from the TPS is itself checked and that's all you have to do. - there's your double-check. It's 100% electrical at this point. Note - WOT due to a short cannot happen without being instantly detected.

The second part is trickier and is where the "20 years+" comes in. Electrical faults are simple to design a reliable and foolproof detection system around. But sticky and intermittent (or broken internally) potentiometers are a real known issue(volume controls as an example). This means that there has to be software monitoring the data, which is the same as on hall effect systems. The critical difference, though, is that it's easy for the code to tell if the input has gotten stuck or isn't working right as the potentiometer won't fail suddenly and there's the electrical monitoring system in any case as a backup. (ie - it's still working, just not correctly)

The hall effect or optical sensor can potentially fail suddenly and without a second entire physical system in place, it won't be able to tell the difference. A typical optical or laser mouse is an example - there's a small microprocessor inside it to make it all work - if the chip on the mouse fails, the computer has no way to know that what it's receiving is incorrect.

The throttle input from the pedal is easy to check with the older system and if there's sudden gaps(surges) or jumps/differences between the two, it identifies it as potentially faulty. So far, this has been 100% effective, if a bit crude. (not all fail-safe systems are necessarily complex or high-tech)

I'm not an expert on OBD software, but there's plenty of information online about how these older systems work and the tricks that they use to double-check the system is working as intended.

Also, this is easy to detect by the end-user, who has weeks or months of warning that there's a problem.(if for some reason the TPS isn't detected as being faulty/it's an ancient OBD 1 system) IME, this is usually first detectable as the idle surging or not returning properly. Even on 25+ year old vehicles, it's exceedingly rare for this behavior to go un-noticed. You fix the TPS and life is good again. Nobody died or got hurt. At worst you had to turn the engine off if the throttle started to surge.(this is typical failure as well - the system surges and varies versus simply getting "stuck" at one value)

Note - they CAN design a hall effect system correctly, but it requires an entirely new system, and as expected, there will be problems like the infamous start button for a key "can't turn off the car" computer crash when they moved to that sort of thing recently. Eventually they will get it all worked out, but to me, it all seems to be needlessly complex to save a few dollars in warranty claims.

srs_49

Only it's really not unexplained!

I was driving home Wednesday evening in my '92 Nissan Sentra, SE-R with 154,000 mile on it. When I was accelerating to get onto the freeway, suddenly the car started accelerating uncontrollably. I was able to control the speed of the car with the brakes, but the engine still wanted to accelerate the car. The Sentra being a 5-speed, I depressed the clutch which let the engine red line, dumped the clutch and the throttle returned to normal.

This happened once or twice more on the way home, but I was always able to recover using the clutch method. Note that tapping on the accelerator pedal had no effect, and though it was hard to tell, it almost felt like the accelerator pedal was not connected to the throttle assy on the engine. Also, every time it happened, I was just depressing the accelerator pedal a tad so as to keep up with traffic. Even the first time it happened while doing the high speed merge, the accelerator pedal was not mashed to the floor.

Got it home, popped the hood, looked for all the obvious things (broken cable, hung up cable, etc), but all looked OK.

So yesterday on the way to work it started doing it again, only this time the clutch technique would not work. So I resulted to using the ignition key, turning the engine on and off, to nurse the car along until I had a safe spot to pull off the road (another freeway). Every time I turned the engine back on, it wanted to red line.

So again, popped the hood, wiggled some things around, and whaddaya know, the problem went away. Started the engine and rev'd it several times and it behaved OK - no runaway throttle at all.

At this point I had already decided to call for a tow, and had the car brought to a Nissan dealership (which just happened to be 3 miles or so up the road, and was where I had bought the car from 19 years ago). The tech looked at it (he was able to get it into the service bay without incident), and declared the problem to be the throttle cable. It was worn where it passed through the firewall, and he claimed to see the throttle assy move uncontrollably when depressing the accelerator pedal (this with the engine off).

Bottom line is they are going to replace the throttle cable. But, some of the special clips that hold the cable where is passes through the firewall had to be special ordered, so it will take a couple of days until I know if this was really the problem or not.

So no potentiometers, no hall-effect sensors, no errant software. Just a worn cable (hopefully).

la4mead

Good job. You had a mechanical sticking throttle which was controlled by the operator. Glad you are OK and all is well. Had yours been automatic, you still would have been able to press the brakes hard, shift to neutral, and shut off the ignition. Still scary, but you had the sense to keep the vehicle under control.

wwest

http://auto.howstuffworks.com/ford-explorer4.htm

Ford Explorer SAFETY recalls, about halfway down the page....

1999, 2000 (with 4.0-liter engine and AWD): The generic electronic module could "lock-up," so various
functions (front wipers, interior lights, 4X4 system, etc.) could not be turned on or off.

Could not be turned on or OFF!!

srs_49

Still scary, but you had the sense to keep the vehicle under control.

Well, I had been following this forum for a while...

plekto

Yeah - I did mention that OBD I cars like your 92 Sentra could miss the problem, but that it was fairly obvious to the driver what was going on. OBD I kind of sucked, to be honest. Of the cars that I've had with major problems over the years with OBD I, only one triggered a service engine light - and then it just spit back a cryptic "do not run" code and nothing else.

My dad's new CTS - you'd swear it has OBD III the way it monitors so many things at once. It's almost like a video game when you pull up the information screen. And then OnStar tracks the information and sends it to you every month - essentially a free scan of the OBD system every month. Very slick.

frankok1

Hope it hasn't been modified

http://www.businessweek.com/news/2011-03-31/toyota-agrees-on-handling-of-its-sec- ret-code-in-lawsuits.html

stever

ateixeira, "Toyota on the mend?" #13811, 1 Apr 2011 1:02 pm

frankok1

Wow - the Judge on his own decided it was not electronics:
http://www.nytimes.com/2011/04/02/business/02toyota.html?_r=1&src=busln

Dr. Sitafalwalla, 59, had argued the accident was caused by defects in either the electronic throttle system or the floor mats. On March 29, Judge E. Thomas Boyle, a United States magistrate presiding over the trial in Central Islip, ruled out evidence on the electronics.

“We weighed all the evidence and came to the conclusion that there was not a defect with the automobile,” said Regina Desio of Plainview, N.Y., the jury forewoman.

Albert Zafonte Jr., a lawyer for Dr. Sitafalwalla, said he was “disappointed in the verdict. I thought there was sufficient evidence for the jury to find otherwise.”

So since the model did not have floor mat or pedal recall it was a pretty easy decision - the old fart had to hit the accelerator instead of the brake.

Wonder if the judge read NASA's Michael Kirsch review of their results in a summary – 03/11
http://onlinepubs.trb.org/onlinepubs/UA/030311Kirsch.pdf

Last page shows that they found errors giving smaller than full throttle openings - couldn't find the cause of "large unintended accelerations". Those smaller ones could explain many of the low crash incidents in parking lots etc. There is no reason why drivers are misapplying pedals in Toyotas, but not in many others such as GM's that have had very very low numbers of cases per vehicle sold.

I am going to stick up for lucid drivers including older ones until proven otherwise.

houdini1

Looks like this whole sudden acceleration fiasco has finally fizzled out. Just like a lot of people said, driver error.

bnet

That's a bunch of crap ---- I had six of them in 2000 Lexus LS400 between 2004 and 2006.

N. Talsoe

box1car

In reviewing the NASA Kirsh.pdf, as an engineer who has designed Avionics
instruments to withstand EMI and RFI, I can say there are several MISSING
ITEMS in what the NASA teams reportedly tested for, most significant was-
Did the good Dr. use his CELL PHONE? If he did (and we all do) then there
was NO EVIDENCE in the NASA report that they tested his particular CELL
PHONE in use with that particular automobile, they only mentioned that
electromagnetic tests had been conducted- NO MAN, you have to have
the EXACT CELL PHONE and the EXACT CRUISE CONTROL attached to the
EXACT TURN SIGNAL ANTENNA to recreate the EXACT UA response-
In short, the NASA testing was by default a bogus, incomplete test.

But the test was conducted by a superior technical arm of the gov't- NASA
Believe me, NASA civil servants (thats all their scientists are) don't have
COMMON SENSE- How do I know that? I worked with them, I know they
often make INCORRECT assumptions like, ever hear of Shuttle disasters?
I designed the calibration instrument for the NASA thrusters. The reason
the shuttle crashed on reentry over Texas was failure of thrusters to steer

There is a reason FLY-BY-WIRE commercial jet liners require ALL CELL PHONES to be turned off and to NOT be used during take offs and landings- Can you guess why? Evidently NASA doesn't understand
what an RF photon consists of for the operating wavelengths of an RF generating CELL PHONE is 14"comprised of 2 half wave 7" dia RFphotons
Means ANY conductor length protruding into cockpit that's 7" in length will act as an antenna to capture the RF signal generated by said CELL PHONE
Can we say TURN SIGNAL here~7" long, directly connected to a CPU that
we call CRUISE CONTROL- Go back to NASA report, you won't find a single
word or statement about these ITEMS that I've mentioned here-

When Mrs. Rhonda Smith testified in Congress that when she had UA in
her Toyota Drive-By-Wire vehicle, she CELL PHONED her husband and
MIRACUOUSLY "God Intervened" to slow her car into the 30mph range
Did anyone ask "What number did you dial?" or "Was there a 3 in it"
Nor did they ask "Had you CELL PHONED anyone BEFORE UA occured"

You see, there is NO COMMON SENSE anywhere anymore, either that
OR this is all one big damn coverup because no one wants to BAIL OUT
another car company. Again, you have to ask the OBVIOUS QUESTIONS
and when a government agency AVOIDS testing for OBVIOUS, I'm sorry
but SOMETHING SMELLS

Yes, I'm cynical. When they shot JFK with a junk carbine BOLT-ACITON
rifle, I was on the Univ. of OK rifle team and my brother was on the
AF Academy rifle team. We both agreed, that had to be a BIG LIE
There's no way you can operate a BOLT-ACTION rifle multiple times
reload, refind your trigger, refind you sights and by then the car's gone.
Oswald said he was a PATSY- he shot Gov. Connely who had signed his
dishonorable discharge papers.

In short, the NASA Kirshe review of UA goes to prove AMERICA is a LIE

busiris

In short, the NASA Kirshe review of UA goes to prove AMERICA is a LIE

Well, other than the omission of the Roswell incident, that just about covers everything...

srs_49

7" dia RFphotons ??? :confuse: :confuse: :confuse:

houdini1

That's a bunch of crap ---- I had six of them in 2000 Lexus LS400 between 2004 and 2006.

You had six craps in a 2000 Lexus LS400 ??? :surprise:

box1car

Einstein stated that "the smallest quanta of energy is a half wave photon"
If wavelength = light speed / frequency, RF cell phones use RF photons of
wavelength = (3x10^10cm/sec)/824-894MHz ~ 14" but half wave is a 7"
sphere that will "center up" on any conductor of 7" length protruding into
the cockpit of a Drive-by-Wire vehicle, like a Turn Signal Arm that in turn is
connected to a CPU of a Cruise Control that uses fuzzy logic to ignore the
911mph signal of an RF generator/cell phone but seizes on the 112mph.
(All Cell phones programmed to do 911 calls also do European 112 call)

How do I know this? 40+ years designing high tech optical instruments that
required understanding of photon interactions with optical surfaces wherein
Discovered Brewster's angle is simply the splitting of a full wave photon
into "smallest quantas of energy" as stated by Einstein- 2 half wave sphere
Don't matter which part of the electromagnetic spectrum its in- from gamma
rays to x-rays to UV to visible to IR to UHF cell phone to RF radio frequency,
they all behave the same when interacting with conductors. To learn more
do Larry Spring Energy for description of electromagnetic spherical photons

wwest

Personally I'm sticking with a firmware flaw within the area of cruise control.

stever

"Sadly, attorneys for the Toyota plaintiffs will rack up big fees and choke the legal system with these cases for years to come. They will (easily, in many cases) confuse the juries into believing fantastic and unprovable theories such as “tin whiskers,” cell phone disruption and sun spots. They will win settlements in many of these cases because they know how lacking in curiosity and engineering expertise the American public is. They will win settlements because they can..."

Scientific Facts Don't Stop Toyota Lawsuits (AutoObserver)

srs_49

These kinds of cases should never be heard before a normal jury. The average American is so ignorant on basic science that a lawyer or "expert" could "suggest" that the earth is flat and half of 'em would probably think that statement had some merit.

plekto

Having recently "survived" a jury selection, I can guarantee this as well. They kicked me off the selection panel/excused me because I actually understood one of the legal terms that they asked me. Apparently being anything other than a complete uninformed and uneducated cubicle worker is too much for the lawyers to accept, these days.

stever

It's pretty much going that way anyway, but under the guise of forced arbitration instead of being entitled to a jury trail.

Supreme Court Strikes a Blow Against the Consumer (www.capecodtoday.com).

A typical arbitrator would be an expert in the field.

houdini1

The average American is so ignorant on basic science that a lawyer or "expert" could "suggest" that the earth is flat and half of 'em would probably think that statement had some merit.

Yep, and there is your "reasonable doubt" !!

wwest

I am probably one of the last persons one might accuse of lacking engineering curiosity and yet I find "tin whiskers", cell phone disruption, and sunspots to be perfectly viaiable explanations for certain device failure situations.

Having been in the electronic manufacturering business since the early 70's I very well know that "tin whiskers", even the long term growing of, is a factual circumstance. Cell phone disruption: Every product my company designs and puts into production must be thoroughly tested and certified that it does not emit EMI nor RFI levels above a FAA regulation level.

Sunspots...Haven't we lost satelites due to severe storms on the sun's surface....?

stever

Agree - Wiki points out that tin whiskers caused the failure of the Galaxy IV satellite in 1998.

Guess I'd get thrown off a jury too, even though I barely got through algebra, much less any engineering courses.

srs_49

Cell phone disruption: Every product my company designs and puts into production must be thoroughly tested and certified that it does not emit EMI nor RFI levels above a FAA regulation level.

That would be unintended emissions. A cell phone is designed to emit - radiate, a not-to-exceed amount of power within it's intended range of operating frequencies. If it didn't, then it wouldn't be a cell phone :P .

So the key is, knowing that things like cell phones are going to be used in the vicinity of your product (that is, in the passenger compartment of car), you need to design your product to be immune to those "normal" levels of emissions.

srs_49

Agree - Wiki points out that tin whiskers caused the failure of the Galaxy IV satellite in 1998

For the products we design for the military, the procuring document (requirements) usually prohibit the use of pure tin. But sometimes we have to use parts that a manufacturer only produces to be compliant with ROHS, meaning lead-free. So if that part has pure-tin coated leads, for instance, we have to dip those leads in a "normal" tin-lead solder before soldering to the circuit card.

wwest

As a general rule, if you prevent EMI/RFI levels from escaping the electronic enclosure then "none" will get in either.

But yes, we once had to relocate our company when the landlord rented the adjacent space to a company that manufactured thermocouples using a welding process. Our PC's, servers, and our microprocessor based phone system, Mitel, would go TU several times each day.

Landlord had no sympathy plus didn't "buy" that the arc welding was the problem.

wwest

"Tin whiskers" is a generic term. Any metal will "grow", migrate, across a distance given the right conditions, time and voltage differential between two sharp metallic points.

Think about how chrome plating or printed circuit board "thru-hole" plating is accomplished.

busiris

But yes, we once had to relocate our company when the landlord rented the adjacent space to a company that manufactured thermocouples using a welding process. Our PC's, servers, and our microprocessor based phone system, Mitel, would go TU several times each day.

Most likely that was due to electrical spikes and surges being introduced into the shared power grid south of the transformer, instead of a RFI issue. I've seen that many times before. In one case, a shop used a "spot-welder" that caused the older model power meter to spin in reverse a bit each time a weld was made.

The folks there got by foir a long time on a really cheap power bill.

In another case, we had an issue in which the electronics (phone systems, computers, etc.) in an office would randomly go "nuts". It eventually was determined that there was a new high-pressure washer installed in a business next door, and every time they decided to fire it up, it drove the electronics crazy.

As this all relates to cars, however, is doubtful to me. After all, how does one go about "hardening" equipment from EMI?

Surrounding it by metal is certainly one way. And, there's a lot of metal enclosing an automobile engine's compartment, and that's usually where the ECM is located.

IMO, its going to have to be a pretty strong and "pin-point" directed signal to interfere with tha average ECM. It may indeed be possible, but I would think that any normally occuring EMI/RFI scenario could be tested out in a lab fairly easily.

box1car

Ordinarily an ECM is protected from EMI/RFI since it is located w/in engine
compartment, but it is DIRECTLY connected for signals from Cruise Control
CPU which in turn is DIRECTLY connected to vehicle cockpit via Turn Signal.
Now, if a high powered RF or more accurately UHF generator is "going off"
within the cockpit, its like tank warfare- you know its a HIT when there's
a resounding "Ronk" from the enemy tank as the penetrating projectile is
trapped inside its turret- same goes for CELL PHONE use in cockpit of car
The signal richochettes around inside the metal cockpit easily picked up by
any metal conductor of 7" length that is "tuned" into frequency generated
by THAT specific cell phone in use- sorta' like it has to be tuned in like FM
radio station, or there's NO SIGNAL transmitted to Cruise Control to ECM
I've read the test reports conducted for EMI/RFI and NONE consider this
(that a specific cell phone might be tuned into the Cruise Control for a
DIRECT PIN POINT CONNECTION into the ECM, ECU, PCM or whatever
Only test coming close is measurements of FIELD STRENGTH around car
but that was back when there was concern about CB units and RFI
Point is- NO ONE has tested the EXACT same car and cell phone units-
So no one has done the job right, and they don't even have a CLUE
Again, listen to Rhonda Smith testimony- she called her husband on a
Cell Phone PEOPLE, and that's when "God Intervened" to slow car- Duh

wwest

No, this was not "line" conveyed.

One of the first measures we used was a UPS for both the phone system and the server. The only thing that seemed to help was a more thorough grounding of the "arc" generating machine, in accordance with the manufacturers' installation instruction manual.

busiris

One of the first measures we used was a UPS for both the phone system and the server. The only thing that seemed to help was a more thorough grounding of the "arc" generating machine, in accordance with the manufacturers' installation instruction manual.

Still, I suspect the building electrical service equipment had a "floating" ground, which would explain why the UPS systems didn't correct the problem, but properly grounding the welding equipment did.

I've seen buildings with a differential between equipment ground and neutral in the dozens of volts... all due to a bad ground at the entrance box. Its far more common than many might think.

wwest

"..building electrical service..."

Sorry, no, again.

We had intimate knowledge of the building electrical service as we were experimenting with a high HP 3 phase motor drive system (Sweo controls to become a part of BALDER) that REQUIRED "Y" feeds not delta. That was always done at night for obvious reasons.

But just to be sure we drove a copper spike into the ground just outside one of the windows for a more local ground.

Properly grounding the welding equipment only reduced the frequency of the TU events.

houdini1

Occasionally the charge that is controlled by the phase control array can leak over into the positive adjustor unit and cause similar problems. Did you think to check that?

wwest

April 1st has come and gone, and at 6' 2" my legs are quite long enough, thank you.

houdini1

LOL, good to see you have a sense of humor ! Sorry, just couldn't resist.

frankok1

http://www.washingtonpost.com/business/economy/safety-panel-toyota-should-listen- -more-to-customers/2011/05/23/AFLMIp9G_story.html

excerpt
In February, NASA investigators rejected claims that electronic defects caused Toyota cars and trucks to accelerate out of control. And tomorrow, Edmunds.com, the automotive Web site, is set to announce at a safety conference that no one has won the contest it launched last year inviting contestants to identify other causes of unintended acceleration.

“The report confirms our view that Toyota’s culture — one that works well in times of stability — left it uniquely vulnerable to a fast-moving crisis, such as the safety issues that enveloped the company last year,” said Jeremy Anwyl, chief executive of Edmunds.com. “But anyone hoping that this report would help settle the debate around causes of unintended acceleration will be disappointed.”

stever

Now there's a tease. :-)

SANTA MONICA, Calif. — May 20, 2011 — Edmunds.com, the premier online resource for automotive information, today released the live webcast link for its first-ever Automotive Safety Conference on Tuesday, May 24. A live stream of the conference, which will feature counter-intuitive insights from fascinating researchers as well as updates from the safety establishment, will be available online at http://www.autoobserver.com/2011-car-safety-conference/webcast.html.

Viewers watching the conference online will also have the opportunity to participate by sending questions or comments. Conference moderators will accept feedback and questions at conferenceedmunds.com before and during the webcast. Viewers are also encouraged to post their thoughts on Facebook at http://www.facebook.com/edmunds or by tweeting edmunds using the #safetycon hashtag.

The safety conference promises to examine the issue of automotive safety from several new – and perhaps controversial – perspectives. Some of these visionary ideas, which are also documented in Edmunds.com’s Car Safety Library, include:

“The principles of "shared space" challenge many long-standing assumptions about the meaning of safety, and the use of familiar highway engineering such as traffic signals, curbs and barriers.” (Ben Hamilton-Baillie, Architect, urban designer and movement specialist)

· “Having your eyes on the road is not the same as having your brain focused on the road. And the health of the driver is an important factor, as the perfectly healthy 75-year-old is far more capable of driving a car than a 60-year-old suffering from Type 2 diabetes or cardiovascular disease and taking medication that would affect cognition, decision making, speed of processing.” (Bryan Reimer, Associate Director of the New England University Transportation Center and Research Scientist in the Massachusetts Institute of Technology AgeLab).

“While evaluating the effectiveness of new high-tech crash avoidance features, we need to remember that other, lower-tech road design, traffic law, and vehicle improvements also can prevent crashes and injuries.” (Adrian Lund, President of Insurance Institute for Highway Safety)

A full schedule and list of speakers at next Tuesday’s safety conference can be found at http://www.autoobserver.com/2011-car-safety-conference/program.html.

houdini1

1. The inability to admit making a mistake.

2. Trying to cash in by running a scam.

3. Seeking publicity.

4. Senility.

5. Inexperience and poor driving skills.

Please forward my $1 million ASAP.

stever

"Tuesday, Edmunds announced the results of a year-long contest that challenged anyone to show a mechanical or electrical cause for SUA that we could verify. The reward was a cool $1,000,000. No one was able to claim the prize."

Evidence Against SUA Keeps Piling (AutoObserver)