Classic Mustangs List Archive

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Mail From: cjk22 (Christian Kronenwetter)

If I may throw in a comment on the subject of design engineering & quality
of product, if they were to design and produce an "unbreakable" level of
product would the American public buy it, I think the answer is more and
more no.

Other then the people on this list who understand that quality is most of
the time worth the price in the long run, I think the trend is to put
economy and number of units produced above sound engineering and QC in
production.

If I may use my wife's previous car as an example, she had a 2001 Hyundai,
in the 2 year I drove it to work it left me stranded on the road a half
dozen times. Each time every thing was free, the towing, the labor and the
parts but I got the feeling that it was cheaper for Hyundai to produce
flawed parts and just replace them under the warranty then to design working
parts.

No idea where I was going with this but I do so enjoy when I get the
privilege of buying something that was meant to work and work well for more
then 2 years.

Christian
(no more Hyundai!)

-----Original Message-----
From: classic-mustangs-bounces at lists.twistedpair.ca
[mailto:classic-mustangs-bounces at lists.twistedpair.ca] On Behalf Of Coates,
Keven
Sent: Thursday, September 27, 2007 10:21 AM
To: Christian
Subject: Re: [CM] It Continues, Clarification


>As an electrical engineer, you would expect that, but remember in
design
engineering, your goal is to design the item as cheaply as possible with
the
bare minimum of parts to get the job done!

Right, but this protection isn't super expensive. I would have thought
a company like Mallory would be concerned about its reputation a little
more than this.

As far as the older ones being more resistant to this kind of stuff, I
understand that point.

As silicon technology shrinks transistor size every year, the new ones
work faster, at lower voltages with less power. For the most part
that's a great thing. Cheaper, faster, more efficient! Unfortunately
one side effect is increased sensitivity to higher voltage destruction.
Every year our ESD tests (designed to test sensitivity to static and
high voltages) get harder to pass for this reason.

This just enhances the need to design the thing with the correct
protection in the first place. This is why I'll use an OEM component if
I can. The tests they have to endure electrically are extremely harsh
(48V for over a second!). Few, if any, aftermarket devices are tested
to this level.

Of course, sometimes even this doesn't catch stuff. Your experiences
with Duraspark show this. Sometimes even more extreme conditions can
happen by accident, or component quality can vary too much.

I admit this is a tangent. I'll stop now and return you all to your
regularly scheduled Mustang talk!

Keven
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