Honda "Drive by Wire" question... what if the power goes out?

Were talking the electronic throttle body=no throttle cable. and it sends the 3 signals along the same wire (I believe Now I'm gonna have to find that book...

Reply to
Stephen H
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Thank you for actually answering OP's question!

J.

Reply to
JXStern

It's a dirty job, but somebody had to do it...

Reply to
Hugo Schmeisser

Then I concentrate it a bit by saying that: airplane fly-by-wire addressed certain laws-of-physics issues that pointed up serious shortcomings in previous control systems. Cable control of the automotive throttle has not that sort of limitation where it would be fundamentally incapable of reliable and durable operation under normal and expected operating conditions. Therefore, replacing a cable with a servomotor in a car does not grant functional improvement to an auto throttle the way a servomotor would to, say, an airplane rudder.

Is that better?

I used to grow weary of replacing the points and condenser every 6,000 miles, so yes, electronic ignition (just to cite one example) has been a boon for the automotive enthusiast who wishes to do something else besides getting a backache and needing to find his bifocals.

However, this convenience comes at quite a price. I remember a points-and-condenser set costing the equivalent of a few dollars. If a modern electronic ignition component fails, you could spend the equivalent of 20-years worth of points-and-condensers replacing it.

This *is* Usenet, after all. Kvetching-R-Us.

Reply to
Hugo Schmeisser

goal of

"throttle-by-wire"

meeting

and of great

absent its

fly-by-wire

serious

the

it would be

under normal

cable with a

to an auto

rudder.

Sure.

I think I would have just said that the demands of operating a plane are quite a bit different from the demands of operating a car. One pushes against air to move; the other pushes against the ground to move, for one.

It was your somewhat disrespecting the outcome of regulatory impetus, as well as ignoring that other improvements not a result of regulation, that seemed to me to be off the mark.

No big deal. Your first post had already reduced the slop in this discussion substantially.

have

every 6,000

example) has been

something else

bifocals.

Sure.

Though as an aside, one of the regulars at the Honda newsgroup discovered that the external radio noise condenser some older Hondas have does wear over time and replacing it may improve performance. While it's not located electrically in the exact same place that the old points condenser was located, it does serve a kind of analogous function, protecting, for one, the igniter, just as the old points condenser protected the points, etc.

remember a

dollars. If a

spend the

replacing it.

I'm not sure what a precise cost-benefit (including reliability; that has a pricetag) analysis would yield, but certainly I see your point.

Just that radio noise condenser to which I refer above goes for about $6 today through online Honda OEM parts sites. I'm not sure one can just run over to Radio Shack and replace it for a lot less.

Reply to
Elle

What does naming any car with drive by wire system have anything to do with Honda's description of the "feature" as it relates to their implementation?

Reply to
James C. Reeves

Yeah, the tundra's great. Unless you need to haul, tow, carry, pull, or otherwise do real work. I can't believe the STUPIDITY of the Japanese makers in trying to get in on the dying tails of the poseur truck market, selling luxury pseudo-trucks to people that need a truck like a hole in the head. Ford, Dodge, and Chevy will always sell their real work trucks to contractors farmers and ranchers, even when the poseur market is gone. Toyota, Nissan, and (especially) Honda with that ridiculous front-drive Ridgeline will have a lot of wasted engineering investment on their hands.

Reply to
Steve

Cite? Documentation? Reality check? Been consuming too much of your screen name?

"Most" SUVs will not flip unless they slide offroad, pull a tire off a rim, or clip a curb- same conditions that will flip a lot of cars. SUVs are more likely to flip in THOSE situations than are cars, but just swerving on a flat road? No way. You can slide most SUVs sideways without them rolling over.

Reply to
Steve

It isn't a steering by wire system. The insane rant (which I notice you snipped) was about steering by wire, something which doesn't exist.

Do try to follow the thread. Behaving like you have a damaged short term memory isn't all that cool.

Reply to
AZ Nomad

Not that 6 bucks is all that big a price for a condenser to begin with... (Or was that your whole point? I haven't been following this thread closely since finding out that "drive-by-wire" actually means "throttle-by-wire" - A rather different beast than the subject line implied.)

I'm sure one can, as long as one defines "a lot" as somewhere in the 2-3 dollar range. It might be a multi-piece unit, and it will have two leads, rather than being the usual "single can with a wire hanging out" style, but when you get right down to it, a capacitor of the right value is a capacitor of the right value, regardless of form-factor or common-use name.

Given the value (mF/pF & voltage rating - prolly find it easily in the service manual - You *DO* have the service manual for your vehicle, right?) of the condenser on your Honda, you've got all the information you need to get one or more - depends on whether the target value is a standard size or not - capacitors that will replace it just fine, even though they might look a bit "odd" for an automotive application. :) They'll be functional, though, and that's what I'd be caring about. I'd expect that rat-shack would have them for around 2-3 bucks. Sure, the "real" one is easier to wire into the system, and might be "prettier" to a purist's eye, but the rat-shack one will work just the same once you get it in place, which would be my main concern if I was needing to be pinching pennies hard enough to go to the effort.

Going back to the "drive/throttle-by-wire" concept for a bit...

I could cope with throttle-by-wire - if, AND ONLY IF, it used a failsafe of "total driver control of the throttle", and when in operation, it confined its "modification" of my input to (brace yourself for the run-on-quotated-phrase from hell :) ) "OK, you just stomped it to the floor - That's fine, but since we're only turning "X" revs and I see we're in "Y"th gear, I can calculate that opening the throttle all the way will just dump "Z" amount of gas out the tailpipe unburned as we rev up to speed, so what I'll do is I'll actually only open the throttle "T" amount, which is optimal to increase "R" from the current value for without pouring that gas out the tailpipe, and I'll continuously recalculate and apply that "T" value to the throttle based on a new sampled every "M" milliseconds until either the throttle is fully open, or you let up on the pedal to a point at or below the current throttle position, whichever comes first"

Any application of drive-by-wire that involves steering or braking is something I don't want any part of. As I said previously, I demand total, godlike control of my vehicle when I'm at the controls - Aside from the case stated above, I don't need or want a computer second-guessing my inputs - If my input says "put it on the locks to the left", I want the wheels turned to the locks on the left. I don't CARE if you think that's unsafe, Mr. Computer - Just MAKE IT HAPPEN. Your calculations may very well show that doing so will send the car into an out-of-control skid to the left. That's fine. Maybe that's *EXACTLY* what I'm counting on in order to avoid running over that kid that just jumped out in front of me. Ditto ABS - Mr. Computer says "You're braking too hard! You're gonna skid! Here, lemme just pump that real fast for you so you don't break traction." What if I'm *TRYING* to break traction for some reason that your little electronic pea-brain just plain isn't equipped to comprehend, let alone react to? What if that reason involves the difference between whether I break traction and spin out to come to a stop just before going over the 400 foot drop, or knowing that I braked smoothly and without loss of traction until a point about 30 feet beyond the edge of the dropoff? Uh-uh... when it comes to steering and braking, just DO WHAT I SAID AND DO IT NOW!

As someone else said, though, steering has been refined over the years, as have braking systems, so that both are highly reliable (given proper service, of course) and both responsive to user input in all but catastrophic failure situations, and give the operator good-to-excellent feedback when power-assisted. The considerations that make "fly-by-wire" a must-have (or even "just desirable") for some aircraft don't exist in cars, and no "drive-by-wire" control is needed unless one wishes to fully automate the driving (Thinking in terms of the "Autodrive" feature in the cars of the future from "Demolition Man"), which is something that I personally think is still a good many years beyond the reach of current technology and AI methods.

Or, more tersely: "It ain't broke. Why are we trying to fix it?"

Reply to
Don Bruder

Thanks :)

Dave

Reply to
David E. Powell

it's 0.47 microfarads. the oem part is $27 with all the wiring and harness that accompanies it.

why on earth would you want that? have you ever driven a diesel? a diesel driver has no direct control over fuel injection whatsoever - it's all delegated to the govenor, either old mechanical or modern electronic. can't say i've met a diesel driver that ever had their panties in a bunch about it the way you all have.

the biggest single advantage for fly-by-wire throttle control in a car is the ability to impliment F1 style shifting on the steering wheel. the day i can get that in a honda [that i can fit in] is the day i retire my 89 civic hatch.

so, you want to go back to manual ignition timing adjustment on the steering wheel? how about hand crank starting? bias ply tires? rod brakes?

fly-by-wire engine control is simply the next logical step. why shift an automatic under full power if you don't have to? it's bad for the transmission, the rest of the power train, the engine mountings, and gives a lurchy ride to the occupants. the current "fudge" of this is to retard ignition timing so that power drops on shift, but it still burns full power gas. that's dumb if you can properly de-throttle and speed up the shift at the same time - and that can be achieved with fly-by-wire.

Reply to
jim beam

goes

to begin

I meant that I would think the points and condenser assembly today was more than a few bucks. More like at least $20. OTOH, I've never put my hands on these and certainly never went shopping for them. I'm only going by what simple mechanical parts for my 91 Civic go for. Now I could google and either quickly prove myself wrong--that points and condensers remain so common today they're dirt cheap--or I would find I'm correct. Don't know. Don't care. We're not doing a detailed analysis of anything here and so there is no learning going on. Just people posting crap off the top of their heads.

actually means

subject line

Yes.

replace it for

somewhere in the 2-3

have two

hanging out"

the right value

form-factor or

easily in the

vehicle,

What do *YOU* think?

It's 0.47 microfarad on the cars that have them. You *DO* know how I found this, right? No, you don't. I haven't a service manaul. I'm amazingly smart and know where to find info like this.

snip stuff that's a best guess and I'd just have to double check anyway, if I were in the market for this condenser, which I'm not, because my Civic's radio noise condenser is built-in to the igniter.

snip the dilettante stuff

Reply to
Elle

In article , Don Bruder wrote: [SNIP]

If you're talking about the Airbus A320 crash at Paris air show in 1988,

formatting link
cause of it is still being disputed.

Reply to
Jan Kalin

No, I don't think it was the airbus. In fact, if it was 1988, then it COLDN'T have been, since the one I'm thinking of happened sometime in the mid-to-late '90s. Something in my memory is saying it was a newer, "exotic" type - maybe that VTOL bird that the Marines keep crashing? I plain forget what kind of aircraft it was, though. I'll have to ask my landlord (works for the FAA, and has a "morbid interest" streak when it comes to oddball crashes) if he recalls it so that I can "zero in" on the exact incident.

I do recall hearing snippets from cockpit recorder tapes on the nightly news that clearly revealed that the pilots were "freaking" (albeit very calmly, as pilots are wont to do) because the plane wouldn't let them do what needed to be done. I believe the cockpit-to-tower chatter was also pretty clear that they were trying like hell to do what was needed as they went down, but the plane wasn't responding to it.

Reply to
Don Bruder

There were two other situations- one merely an incident that was overcome and the plane landed safely, and another in the Alps that did result in a fatal crash, that were blamed on the fly-by-wire.

The problem was not the idea of FBW by itself, but the poor implementation of it by Airbus. The problem was in requiring pilot to fix a problem, or change modes, by typing in numbers and settings on a keypad, which is not an instinctive response of a pilot. There was no simple way to disable computers and fly by command inputs only.

Reply to
Don Stauffer

I don't recall exact pricing any more, but the Kettering points-and-condenser set used to be one of those very cheap things you could buy for your car, probably because so very many were made and sold every day of the week.

I'm vaguely remembering the set was close to the cost of an oil filter. And if you had only one set of points (some cars had two) and were not swapping the condenser this time around, it got even cheaper.

Anyone with a better memory?

Reply to
Hugo Schmeisser

So when you "drive" you don't steer as part of the process?

Perhaps true, but irrellivant. The name chosen implies that it does exist for those customers that may not be up on technology (or even understand what technology is available).

Reply to
James C. Reeves

Check out the chevy malibu it is drive by wire steering

Reply to
xfmr

No it's not. It has an electric power steering, but that just replaces the ususal hydraulic power steering. The steering wheel is still physically connected to the steering mechanism.

Steer-by-wire would imply *no* physical connection between the steering wheel and the wheels, i.e., a computer would measure the position of the steering wheel and command a hydraulic or electric actuator that would then turn the wheels. AFAIK no such car exists on the market today precisely because and electrical failure would leave you with absolutely no control over the vehicle .

Reply to
Jan Kalin

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