2 ms·

The mass market parts probably wouldn't stand up to car environments, these are expected to operate for years with temperatures that range from well below freez

The mass market parts probably wouldn't stand up to car environments, these are expected to operate for years with temperatures that range from well below freezing in the winter to over 150 parked in the sun when it's hot out.

colechristensen 6y ago
There are automotive rated parts which comes down to an increased temperature range and (where applicable) vibration tolerance, electrical transients, etc. Sometimes it involves different materials but usually it’s just more testing on an increased range. For example a part which handles electric current might be rated to 100mA at an ambient temperature of 20C but only 40mA at 60C or -40C. Regular consumer electronics you can just ignore these ranges as unreasonable but a car is going to get that hot or that cold so you have to have parts rated for those conditions.
hinkley 6y ago
> the moral equivalent of a raspberry pi compute engine I did not mean mass market parts when I said “moral equivalent” since that was not clear. I meant automotive grade controllers. I guess the real problem, besides shortages of the IC on the board as someone else said, would be connectors. The circuit boards aren’t just built different, the connectors are ruggedized and in some cases water/dirt resistant too. There’s no way you’ll use the same connector for a five way adjustable seat as for the cabin light controls. And if you did you couldn’t put any of them next to each other or someone plugs the defroster into the cruise control and somebody dies. Best you could do is a standard circuit board and custom housing that has the wiring harness, and at that point things look pretty similar to the status quo. Also relays in that situation are probably a bigger part of the wiring than I’m allowing.

2 ms·

The mass market parts probably wouldn't stand up to car environments, these are expected to operate for years with temperatures that range from well below freez

by wlesieutre 6y ago

colechristensen 6y ago
There are automotive rated parts which comes down to an increased temperature range and (where applicable) vibration tolerance, electrical transients, etc. Sometimes it involves different materials but usually it’s just more testing on an increased range. For example a part which handles electric current might be rated to 100mA at an ambient temperature of 20C but only 40mA at 60C or -40C. Regular consumer electronics you can just ignore these ranges as unreasonable but a car is going to get that hot or that cold so you have to have parts rated for those conditions.
hinkley 6y ago
> the moral equivalent of a raspberry pi compute engine I did not mean mass market parts when I said “moral equivalent” since that was not clear. I meant automotive grade controllers. I guess the real problem, besides shortages of the IC on the board as someone else said, would be connectors. The circuit boards aren’t just built different, the connectors are ruggedized and in some cases water/dirt resistant too. There’s no way you’ll use the same connector for a five way adjustable seat as for the cabin light controls. And if you did you couldn’t put any of them next to each other or someone plugs the defroster into the cruise control and somebody dies. Best you could do is a standard circuit board and custom housing that has the wiring harness, and at that point things look pretty similar to the status quo. Also relays in that situation are probably a bigger part of the wiring than I’m allowing.