Just been reading an article about the new BMW 7 series 6 speed auto transmission 6HP26 also known as "myTronic6."
Quote from Vehicle Engineering and Design Nov2001.
?At the core is an ECU from Motorola?s PowerPC family. Each transmission produced at Saarbrucken goes through a battery of tests to establish its unique characteristics, which are then programmed into the chip, *creating a bespoke ECU for that specific transmission* .
?It?s the brain of the system? says Manfred Bek, senior manager control systems for ZF Getreibe car transmission division.?
I don?t know if vehicle manufacturers monitor internet sites such as this but I wonder if they do realise that folks, at least this one, do not want this level of complication. It is BMW?s intention to roll this technology down the range.
How will all you technical guys service and deal with fault finding on this stuff when the ECU is slightly different for each individual gearbox? Seems very clever but somewhat barmy to me.
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any well written code in the ecu should be able to cope with (for example) different amounts of wear...
setting up each one differently can only be "data", and not the actual program
and really that data would be better being fed be sensors on the car, to cope with it changing as it wears, goes through different temperatures etc
agree that bmw is overly complicated, and probably wont drive that well anyway...
most people want an intuative car that they can figure out how to use controls quickly...
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I feel the need for a Reset Button coming on! How about the option to 'reboot' in Safe Mode?
Taking it even further, maybe the integrated GSM phone could automatically generate the call to download the specific software needed for a car, and get the regularly needed driver software..........
God help you if you enter a motorway tunnel at a critical time......
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I expect you will have to logon and give your password. What happens when your internet enabled ECU gets a virus and dumps your car into the nearest ditch!
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C'mon, you guys. Who do you think you're kidding. Which of us wouldn't own all that hi-techery if we could afford and Mr BMW knows it.Stuart B wrote:
>
> Just been reading an article about the new BMW 7 series 6
> speed auto transmission 6HP26 also known as "myTronic6."
>
> Quote from Vehicle Engineering and Design Nov2001.
>
> ?At the core is an ECU from Motorola?s PowerPC family. Each
> transmission produced at Saarbrucken goes through a battery
> of tests to establish its unique characteristics, which are
> then programmed into the chip, *creating a bespoke ECU for
> that specific transmission* .
>
> ?It?s the brain of the system? says Manfred Bek, senior
> manager control systems for ZF Getreibe car transmission
> division.?
>
> I don?t know if vehicle manufacturers monitor internet sites
> such as this but I wonder if they do realise that folks, at
> least this one, do not want this level of complication. It is
> BMW?s intention to roll this technology down the range.
>
> How will all you technical guys service and deal with fault
> finding on this stuff when the ECU is slightly different for
> each individual gearbox? Seems very clever but somewhat barmy
> to me.
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sorry. pressed the quote button by mistake
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I sell machines that are used in the printing industry. In the 'old days' the on-board control was made by PLC using simple 'ladder logic'. Nowadays we use PC's with bespoke software. Guess what:
- Longer lead times, where the software is nearly always the longest lead item.
- Frequent machine stops.
- Sometimes catastrophic machine crashes (fortunately our competitors, not us so far).
The upside is better machine control and faster/cheaper components. The biggest single gain is where servo motors replace pneumatics.
In something like a car, a 'crash' is surely undesirable!
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ab or h & s, give me a clue...
yea but you know as well as i do that a car is different in many ways...
it hasnt got ht70 or whatever written on the side anyway...
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Dear Crazed Iiot,
Try Muller Martini.
(Who is ab? Actien Brauerei)
(h & s - Heidelberg & something?)
Do you run a HT70? Or work for Goss?
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Well, I certainly need none of these complications.
I had a 1929 high chassis 3 litre special Lagonda, with the-supposed-to-be difficult Z type box - but one could change up remarkably quickly with the clutch stop. (Not swinging the lamp, I paid £110.)
The only thing wrong with was, it it was slow, not much better than the best Peugeot of the time - enough to lose you points in these vile decadent times, of course - but even then it was 30 years old.
The engine management system was the tachometer, the gearbox, the ignition advance/retard and the mixture controls.
One could could do almost any job with a good set of Whitworth spanners and a few optional things like hub-pullers. There was no need to take anything off the chassis, which was as well considering the marine engineering like weights of metal. The electrics were a dynamo, a starter motor and the magneto. Of these, the only thing ever to give trouble was the magneto, which last was cured by putting it in a low oven overnight.
Even went on my honeymoon in that car!
It was called Tam for short, from Marlowe - "most barbarous and bloody Tamburlaine".
I really loved it, and did it a favour by keeping it up when it was just an old car because somebody has it to this day (when I could not afford to buy it back!).
Otherwise I would.
Probably, had all cars been like that and not afflicted with the synchromesh box and other subsequent indulgences for the feeble and clueless, we might still have had motoring, few mimsers, and no risking our necks among the tractors and sheep where the nae cameras are when we want some fun.
True motorists would be far better off had there never been the "complications".
I don't want them.
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Another thing; we have all seen film of hilarious things happen to rockets when enormously expensive software laid an egg........
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If you mean the Ariane 5 failure, there's the full report on it at:
www.esa.int/export/esaCP/Pr_33_1996_p_EN.html
Thankfully, it was unmanned, unlike your average car.....
Lee.
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I wish I'd never sold the Model T.
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BMW = Complex.
Was it a BMW that had the interactive chrome jog dial/mouse called 'the knob' instead of any normal controls as reviewed in Driven? I waver when l turn the radio on, how am l suppose to drive when l'm busy trying to get my left testicle exactly 2C warmer than the other? (New Testestronic drive system l hear.)
dan
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I want a car that changes gear when I want it to, not one that learns, because I do different things every time, according to situation.
Carl
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