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Grex > Agora46 > #66: Car air bag "black box" used as evidence | |
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| Author |
Message |
| 12 new of 36 responses total. |
gull
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response 25 of 36:
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Jul 11 14:05 UTC 2003 |
Re #22: I realize coolant recovery bottles are modern improvements. But
I considered a 1990 model year van to be "modern". My '85 Crown
Victoria had a recovery bottle, as does my '82 Volkswagen.
Eventually I got sick of it pissing coolant onto the ground on hot days
and bought an aftermarket bottle.
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russ
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response 26 of 36:
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Jul 11 22:28 UTC 2003 |
Re #23: If you have no experience with the cost-driven nature of
automotive design practices, you don't really grasp the issue.
Claiming that someone else's experience isn't exactly the matter
at issue (therefore you are correct) is special pleading; air bags
are made by suppliers of broad lines of automotive components, all
product lines are under identical cost pressures, and they swap
engineers and managers all the time.
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scott
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response 27 of 36:
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Jul 12 06:13 UTC 2003 |
Russ, unless you've got SPECIFIC EXPERIENCE in airbag design your assumptions
are NO BETTER THAN MINE. I realize you've probably got a lot of emotional
investment in "I'm smarter than everybody esle" but you really need to accept
that it might not be true.
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russ
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response 28 of 36:
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Jul 12 06:27 UTC 2003 |
Re #25: Lots of improvements mandated for cars were not mandated
for "trucks", and vans are legally "light trucks". I don't know why
a van owner wouldn't want to keep free oxygen out of the cooling system
and the other benefits that a coolant recovery bottle provides, but it's
possible that the space constraints under the short nose of the typical
van (plus the cost) kept the manufacturers from offering them for a few
years. Hey, the radiator replacement comes after the warranty expires,
so why should they care? </cynicism>
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russ
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response 29 of 36:
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Jul 12 13:57 UTC 2003 |
(Cluelessness: Using an argument immediately after being told
exactly why it is fallacious.)
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scott
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response 30 of 36:
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Jul 12 15:48 UTC 2003 |
(Obstinance: Pretending to be an expert, even after having to admit one has
no special knowledge or experience in the relevant field)
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russ
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response 31 of 36:
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Jul 13 04:02 UTC 2003 |
Re #30: Yeah, but when are you going to admit it to yourself?
Just for the audience, the issue is whether the airbag-trigger
accelerometers are used to feed data to the "black box" used to
get information on airbag performance. Scott is claiming that
a system which is absolutely required to produce a binary fire/
no fire (or a trinary no fire/slow/fast) indication at an
acceleration of several gravities will either be suited to
measuring and integrating accelerations of a small fraction of
a gravity, or have its design broadened to accomodate the
additional functionality (at some cost in better sensors, more
computing power, and more complex and thus expensive testing
requirements). That's what it would take to get meaningful
information during the period before the actual collision.
I'm asserting that this is contrary to automaker design practice
in all regimes, including safety-critical systems such as brakes.
(BT, DT, GTTS.) The automaker's preferred method of capturing
speed data would be to read the speed-sensor packets going over
the vehicle bus, at zero cost; the bus interface is required to
capture other data, and is far more standard across platforms.
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scott
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response 32 of 36:
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Jul 13 05:45 UTC 2003 |
Russ, you're making bad assumptions about my position.
I'm claiming that it's possible, not that the automakers would spend extra
money on a complete implementation.
Although it's also possible that the automakers, for CYA purposes, indeed
spend extra to have accurate acceleration/speed data.
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pvn
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response 33 of 36:
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Jul 13 08:49 UTC 2003 |
Hmm. I do know that it is possible given knowlege of the make and model
to trigger the airbag of many a parked car using a 5lb sledge
appropriately applied. Think thunder storms and car burglar alarms for
another and similar example.
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gull
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response 34 of 36:
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Jul 14 15:24 UTC 2003 |
Re #33: I'm not sure car alarms are a good example. The culprit in a lot of
cases seems to be "window break detectors" which are really just "loud noise
detectors". For some reason (maybe so the owner feels like the alarm is
"doing something") these suckers seem to get cranked up as far as they'll go
when the alarm is installed.
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russ
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response 35 of 36:
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Jul 14 22:12 UTC 2003 |
Re #32: The automakers are interested in statistics, which wouldn't
be hurt by a substantial fraction of data known to be unreliable and
thus discarded. (How many hundred air bags go off every day?)
Forensic purposes require accurate data every time; it is an essential
conflict between the requirements of the base system and the very
different uses to which its output is put.
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scg
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response 36 of 36:
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Jul 15 03:34 UTC 2003 |
I don't think Scott is claiming to be an expert. Scott is claiming that
neither he nor Russ are experts.
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