Drive by Wire - Jackaroo

I repaired my tumble dryer yesterday. It's a few years old but has had little use and works well. A few weeks ago it decided to do funny things - all the lights came on and it ignored the buttons. I stripped it down and found the main controller - as I suspected a single chip microcontroller and a few discrete electronics - "feels like a reset problem to me" I thought. Located the capacitor which looked like it handled the reset, removed and replaced it with a similar one. Problem solved - tumble dryer back to working like new.

The moral: the capacitor which failed is about 3mm diameter by 10mm high and costs about 10c. I happen to be an electronics engineer and have the knowledge, tools and spare parts to do this kind of thing - had I not then the tumble dryer would have been a write off. Modern day electronics are, usually, very reliable but they do go wrong and are very, very difficult to fix. As they age they tend to fail more often - I wonder what will happen in ten years time when all these electronic 4WDs are failing in remote spots - probably won't be worth repairing them?

Electronics in a vehicle? Fine for the family car but for a 4WD...? Give me as few as possible.

Mike Harding

Mike, I wish you had been here to see my antics trying to get my 15 year old dishwasher running again, I have had extensive training with circuit board repair (multi layer Aircraft & NASA registrations - those were the days, using 'dental' techniques to repair a 13 layer circuit board out of the computer on a Sea King.... )....My solution was to buy a new one - with a simple rotary timer rather than the all singing all dancing one...
I did of course ask my wife if she wanted the position of honary dishwasher but she said 'Over my dead body' which for a fleeting second I did consider...

Your friend had a what???????? may I ask.

C'mon! give us some details instead of alluding to a 'one'.

Was that one e-goat v3.3??????????????

Excuse me 'Minister for anything & everything' are you hinting here that he had to to get it up to 5-6000 rpm to make it work.

How did he do that.

I think he means $5000 -$6000 to repair it...Do pay attention Lucy...

Are you sure about that, could buy a new one for that sort of money.

AND

If 'buffoon Bonz' would take the time to elucidate himself, I wouldn't have to expose my inadequacies and ask such questions.

About time he took a remedial at the Terang College for Anything and Everything , including the module re 'house lifting' from peoples houses when he visits unannounced.

Indeed I once knew a man who had a Jackaroo TD whose electrinic brain did go phut. (the car not the man) It cost $5000-$6000 to repair and Holden came to the party with 50% of the cost.

Now I am not sure what u mean about unannounced house visits for I always precede a visit with fanfare and pomp and ceremony, even if it is 10 mins before I pull into the driveway.

Hope This has sufficiently unbefuddled your mind Lucy so that you can fond your way to the railway station to get to work tomorrow.

The repair was a replacement too not a 10c e-goat upgrade

There are already plenty of electornic whiz bangery 4wd's out there that are 10-15 years old running fine. Look at any EFI petrol, even my old surf is EFI diesel, yeah ok it has a mechanical throttle control, but really have a little electric motor and a sensor on the pedal is not exactly complicated compared to the other bleep that is going on there.

$5000-$6000 = Holden = Rip off = What else would you expect from a dealer.

I have a print out of the error codes for my ECU in the tool box, a simple paper clip put on the diagnostics lead of most ECU operated cars will flash the engine light on the dash to give you error codes that will tell you what is wrong.

>but its just another risk to take in choosing vehicles

Not really. The problem with electronics is that they are un-fixable, usually, in the bush. Most mechanical things can be jerry rigged to get you out of trouble somehow but if the output MOSFET on your engine control micro fails then you're stuffed - full stop!

Mike Harding