An expert on electromagnetic interference was approached by the US government for an independent assessment of problems that have caused the massive recall of Toyota cars.
According to a document seen by TechEye, and written by EMI expert Keith Armstrong, the idea that the Toyota recall is due to sticking pedals is a smokescreen. In the document, Armstrong said he was contacted by the US government's National Highway Traffic Safety agency to discuss the EMI (electro magnetic interference) implications behind cases of unintended acceleration.
He says tests performed by the motor industry, by the Japanese government and the US government show it's almost impossible to stop a runaway behicle with the brakes. And if EMI is involved in cases like these, there's no trace of a defect after an incident.
He said that if electronic circuits, software or firmware in cars go full throttle or otherwise cause an error, the circuits show no more stress than if it was behaving normally and are undetectable afterwards.
Armstrong said that manufacturers are denying that EMI could be a cause of sudden acceleration, but that view is logically unsound. Armstrong said that this is a "bankrupt argument" and that any competent design engineer knows this.
He also says that complex electronic systems are difficult to make reliable enough for safety. He claims that electronics systems in automobiles don't use the safety principles that are common in other industries, and even mandated. People are a poor safety back up where cars are concerned.
The standard for functional safety is IEC 61508[2] and the auto industry is lagging behind and has only just produced the first draft of its own version of the standard.
He said that lead free soldering is also a problem and can cause tin whiskers to gow which cause short circuits. This problem is documented here, and has caused serious problems in the computer industry previously.
Software, he concludes, can also be affected by EMI and can cause instability to electronic circuits.
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Nice Ehh, Just mix with Toyota & get Toy Auto.
STeWie.
The authors would be well served to check their facts.
This is not the first time drive by wire systems have failed. See http://www.vexedvolvo.org/ for another example of drive by wire failures and how the manufacturer and NHTSA avoided the issue.
When it comes to safety it is time to do the science and not speculate as the authors of this article have.
Toyota is doing a stand up job dealing with the problem and while they need to be held accountable we must also not confuse the situation with uncheck facts and conjecture.
Lead free has been shown to not be able to withstand the extreme environments need for automotive electronics.
Which is basically military requirements.
Mind you, the documents do not call for that.
If a car is parked near the arctic circle, is most certainly going to be just as cold as the jet fighter on the tarmac.
The same goes for the regions near the equator, except a lot hotter.
Until I see one of these engine controls, randomly selected, and in my hands, then I will believe it is not lead free.
There is enormous pressure from the EU, in the form of mandates and directives, to use lead free everywhere, regardless of the consequences. Except, of course, you are one of their favorites, like Swatch.
These mandates and directives are not part of the representative government here, they have no right to impose their desires.
It is our right to decide which is best for us by our votes, in our representative government.
Considering that lead from electronics in the environment is only 0.47% of the total lead, why have lead free in electronics?
Why not expand recycling programs?
Why not go after the large problems first, like batteries, 80% of the lead in the environment.
Not my numbers, just the numbers from the EPA.
Totally electronic engine controls, they are even considering steer by wire, will never be reliable enough.
If enough fail-safes were installed and maintained, electronic controls would prove to be more expensive than the mechanical solution.
EMI? Yeah, that is a huge problem, even the US Military had a problem with it, caused a helicopter to crash when it got too close to a radio station, killed all aboard.
Yet again, by the time electronic controls are hardened enough to withstand EMI, they will not be cost effective.
So, why are electronics even being considered, well, cheap and dirty is always a suspect.
John
(The man in the field, the lab, and pretty much everywhere else. )
One would think the opening or for sure the 2nd paragraph would expound and explain the headline. It's not until the 2nd to last paragraph that the subject of "tin whiskers" is mentioned, and even then it is only a general "could potentially be a cause" type statement, not offering any data or evidence of a specific nature as to why this might be the problem for Toyota. Poor reporting in my opinion, and I think you could do better. If nothing else, the headline should have mentioned "EMI" and not "Electronic tin whiskers".
I agree that these kind of mandates are problematic and I agree with your assertion that "Lead free has been shown to not be able to withstand the extreme environments need for automotive electronics".
It isn't really important what your or I think - Toyota has banned the use of lead free solders in their safety critical systems. They are not alone in this because most automotive manufactures share this view.
My company manufactures automotive electronics and we will not and do not use lead free solders for mission critical applications in automotive, aerospace, medical or other high reliability applications. I am sure you will find other manufacturers that do not want to take on this liability.
However, the reason may surprise you - it is not tin whiskers because they can be controlled and are not the principle failure mechanism in lead free soldering. The problem is the embrittlement issues and the fact that lead free assemblies do not withstand shock and vibration as well as tin/lead solders.
There is an enormous body of scientific research that concludes it is and it is not reliable. As they say, the jury is still out.
Here are some examples:
http://www.efsot-europe.info/servlet/is/251/17%20Gerard-Marie%20Martin.pdf?command=downloadContent&filename=17%20Gerard-Marie%20Martin.pdf
http://www.imec.be/IMECAT/documents/28_2005_IMAPS_Brugge_Mango_paper.pdf
I work with automotive engineers and executives everyday and here is the prevailing view: "The amount of lead in automotive electronics is minuscule compared to the other hazardous substances in the batteries, paint, fuel, lubrication, etc therefore it would be ridiculous to expose the public to the reliability and safety risks of lead free solders in the electronics when it is completely unnecessary and has no value to our customer or the environment".
Back to the point - the journalism in this article is exceptionally poor and is totally off base and illogical. It appears to be someone with a grudge to bear against lead free solders. They need to get used to lead free solders because they do have their place in commercial applications but their place is not where the electronics are subject to extremes or mission critical or life safety.
By the way, the EU and other RoHS directives have exclusions for high reliability, mission critical and life safety applications so you really cannot say it is mandated.
I can understand why they did not link to it.
http://www.nutwooduk.co.uk/downloads/Toyota.doc
Course if one has both problems of runaway acceleration AND no hydraulic brakes then that's another matter but that doesn't seem to be the point of this article reporting testing revealed "it's almost impossible to stop a runaway vehicle with the brakes". How about throwing us a specific citation of study for that claim? I offer the following for further reading:
http://www.caranddriver.com/features/09q4/how_to_deal_with_unintended_acceleration-tech_dept
That tin whiskers are the cause of such failures would be most difficult to prove - after an accident, the whiskers, being so tiny and fragile, would probably be long gone, unless enclosed in a tightly sealed package.
I loathe non eutectic solder because of the inherent difficulties in its utilization, and the increased difficulties across the board in rework and circuit/board modifications.
I do not recall in my reading of a methodology that imposes a complete cessation on whiskers: Only mitigation.
All that being said, I fear that the left-wing whackos and their RoHS foolishness will, at least for the short term, prevail.
In it he states:
"From what I see in the article, Armstrong has no data, and has not looked at a failed Toyota brake system. He is just arguing that EMI may be the culprit. Who knows?"
He goes on:
"Armstrong is then quoted as saying that tin whiskers, in the lead-free solder, may be to blame for the recalls and he then references work by John Barnes. Barnes' exhaustive summary has nothing to say about tin whiskers in Toyota braking systems, just a bit about tin whiskers in general, in the over 1,000 pages about lead-free issues. Armstrong is then quoted as saying that the tin whisker problem, "has caused serious problems in the computer industry previously." The article at this link is dated 12 November 2002 and is simply a call for papers on tin whiskers at a conference. Strong suggestions for having no data!"
Read Dr. Lasky's blog, then comment, should you desire to weigh in: http://short.to/18jcx
http://www.snotr.com/video/4009
This is a link to his testimony to Congress http://energycommerce.house.gov/Press_111/20100223/Gilbert.Testimony.pdf
Since shorts (even high resistance shorts) were proved by Dr. Griffin to cause instantaneous acceleration in Toyotas (as seen in the video), then it is certainly a possibility that a whisker could cause the problem.
Automobiles are a perfect environment to grow whiskers. Humid, hot and mechanically a stressed location.
Whiskers are hard to detect, the number grown is highly variable and unpredictable. Lead is the only metal that significantly suppresses their growth. Read about them at NASA's website
http://nepp.nasa.gov/WHISKER/
Professor Griffin has demonstrated that the ECM is susceptible to a simple induced short and what's worse, that it does not generate an errror code when the short develops and it has no countermeasure to reject it.
It doesn't have to be a whisker, it could be a frayed wire that grounds out to the chassis or to the +12V bus. The module does not reject an out of band signal and that's a deadly state to be in, as the 19 people who have died so far, have sadly demonstrated.
Too many experts (not in the employ of Toyota) agree that there are flaws in the ECM design.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5ziP3FBbR2I
http://www.hybridplastics.com/docs/tds/ShortStop.pdf
On top of all this, Toyota was probably using a traditional formulation, plus news out this week suggests these sudden acceleration errors were primarily driver error:
http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052748703834604575364871534435744.html
I don't understand the efforts to misinform on this, I guess change is hard. RoHS is successfully keeping toxic waste out of landfills, water supplies, and away from 3rd-world workers.
http://nepp.nasa.gov/WHISKER/reference/tech_papers/2011-NASA-GSFC-whisker-failure-app-sensor.pdf