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Window controls are safety regulated modules in modern vehicles. They detect the closing force and reverse direction off the required motor torque exceeds av th
by wcunning 5y ago
Window controls are safety regulated modules in modern vehicles. They detect the closing force and reverse direction off the required motor torque exceeds av threshold so that you can’t accidentally or intentionally choke someone with the windows. This feature is required by standards bodies and some regulators.
Why not put those smarts in one big module, say the Body Control Module which is always huge and already gets redesigned and uses more expensive, smaller feature chips anyway you ask? Well, we need to run a bunch of wires to the door, several for the switch, power and grind and Hall effect sensor for the motor and we need to account for the noise and power loss on the long wire run because as a safety feature the sensing has to be ASIL compliant to high fault tolerance. Turns out that that length of wire is several dollars more than putting the module in the door… These things are all done for a reason and the automotive engineers aren’t solely stuck in the old ways. They’re frequently penny pinched to death, but if you look at the constraints they’re doing their best.
- baybal2 5y ago> Window controls are safety regulated modules in modern vehicles. They detect the closing force and reverse direction off the required motor torque exceeds av threshold so that you can’t accidentally or intentionally choke someone with the windows. This feature is required by standards bodies and some regulators. All of this is achieved with a single <$1 part, fixed torque clutch... But who in the world wants to intentionally choke somebody with a power window? This add to the long list of absurd product liability regulations in the spirit of one demanding "do not operate the appliance with your genitals" to be printed on every stove.
- dharmab 5y agoI remember watching A Faster Horse, a documentary on the Mustang. There was an interview with an accountant type at Ford who pointed out a three cent difference in part cost per car multiplied to millions of dollars at their scale. A $1 part might have given him a heart attack.
- panick21 5y agoSeriously people need to watch Sandy Munro on YT. He literally went threw some calculations one the money you can save on removing a single fastner from the design. He was a former chief engineer at Ford and had his own company for decades now. He also worked in Ford Global Finical Head Quarters. When he sees some small board screwed down with to many screws he starts ranting.
- imagi 5y agoKids/dogs plus automatic windows…
- HeyLaughingBoy 5y agoLiterally the thought I had :-) Been there, yelled at the kid!
- x0x0 5y ago> But who in the world wants to intentionally choke somebody with a power window? children. eg: https://abcnews.go.com/GMA/story?id=124854&page=1 https://abcnews.go.com/GMA/story?id=124854&page=1 > A 1997 government study by the National Center for Statistics and Analysis estimated power windows sent nearly 500 people to emergency rooms in one year, and that half the victims were small children.
- dragonwriter 5y ago> > the sameso that you can’t accidentally or intentionally choke someone with the windows. > But who in the world wants to intentionally choke somebody with a power window? Accidental is the more significant problem, particularly with children.
- panick21 5y agoClearly you haven't watched the movie 'Snatch'.