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



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

[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.