Modern vs Mechanical Controls

[kb0nes]

As for electronics in appliances I consider it utter madness to even consider a mechanical control today.

Properly made electronics are easily more reliable than a mechanical control and they also offer a world of flexibility and control that mechanical controls could never duplicate.

Judging the durability of modern mechanical controls based on how long the timers of the 60's lasted is folly too. The modern parts are quite unlikely to have those long service lives as cost concerns will have changed how those parts are made.

I'd never consider purchasing any modern appliance with crude mechanical controls.

 

[ea56]

Phil,

“Remember that an automobiles brakes are VASTLY more powerful than its engine is. Even with the throttle full wide open and the car going at speed the brakes will stop the car reasonably quickly.”

I was heading into a curve that advised 35 mph at over 55 mph and still picking up speed, and I was pushing the brake as hard as I could and the car WAS NOT slowing down. I had no time to put the brakes to the test. Its a wonder the brake pads didn't fuse to the wheels. Only when I put the car into neutral was I able to stop the damn thing. When I finally got stopped and pulled over to the shoulder the brakes smelled like they were on fire.

You can all second guess my actions as much as you want. But I prevented an accident and maybe my death and the deaths of others by remaining cool and acting quickly.

If this ever happens to you, be my guest and see if you can stop the car with the engine racing by just applying the brakes. I wish you the best of luck in your experiment.

Eddie

 

[Chetlaham]

Reply #12

Not when the brake, ignition, gas, EM brake and PRNDL are feeding into a computers instead of directly connected to brake cable, hydraulic fluid, distributor electrical, carburetor, ect.

http://www1.cs.columbia.edu/~unger/articles/autos.html

There are documented cases, some that have been on the news or talk shows where vehicles have not only accelerated when the brake were depressed but the driver could not shut off the engine, put the car in neutral, apply the EM brake or anything else.

This is in part because in some cars these items are boolean interlocked to prevent a user from say shifting the car in park while the gas is depressed. The concept works, until something else goes wrong.

While not the best case for discussion, here is but one example:

https://www.drive.com.au/news/kia-sorento-out-of-control-in-us-takes-woman-on-wild-ride/

It is not that the brakes were burnt out, the gearbox failed, ect. Its that some certain failure modes involving acceleration result in any means to shut off the vehicle being locked out.

The thing is these cases are often swept underneath the rug, do not receive a fine tooth comb, or simply brushed as the driver having done something wrong. The auto industry is hush-hush about it and for good reason.

(Yes I know that some modern makes of cars are not interlocked per say and you can set the car into park mode going 125MPH...)

 

[bradfordwhite]

It's not like analog timers are fail safe. I've seen several over the years.

Look at the self advance timer issue in the recently acquired 906s in the Imperial forum.

Some electronic timers have a built in fuse that can be replaced. That's something not found on analog timers.

 

[Chetlaham]

@eddie: I believe you, I have not doubt in my mind, and let me be the one to say that I'm sorry that happened to you. You did your absolute best with the cards you were dealt with. You reacted better than I would have reacted, I simply would have shut down in panic.

In regards to judging Edie: Everyone says you should have done X vs Y, says it can't/won't/shouldn't happen, says A or B will always be the saving force. Except until it happens to you personally. While I've never been in a car where the brakes failed (knocking on wood LOL) I have had other stuff happen to me where I've been humbled and have become less tempted to question others after they've been through something.

Regarding Audi, sure brakes their brakes were tested under controlled lab conditions to make themselves look less guilty, but out in the real world where scientific controls are not present different outcomes are inevitable.

 

[Chetlaham]

Fail Safe Timers

All appliances should take timer or timer motor failure into consideration. (just as you would with an electronic control that can have say a relay contact welding closed)

This is done through thermostats, thermal fuses, over current fuses, float switches, pressure switches, position limit switches, displacement switches, impedance protection, inherent protection, continuous duty ratings, ect, ect.

Timer vs electronic does not change that, although sadly there are plenty of appliances that lack realistic fail safes, ie GE dishwashers where the the timer can stop with the drain solenoid or heater running indefinitely, ovens without thermal fuses relying on a single relay on the EM board, ect.

Most unnecessary timer failures stem from the same reason we find electronics in appliances today: lots of complex cycle modifiers and/or cycle initiation done through one touch push buttons.

Everything A KDS-18 or Maytag A906 does can be replicated with a single dial rotated via a single timer motor.

 

[maytag85]

Reply #20

One thing they should do is put built in floor mats on vehicles so there won’t be any worries about the floor mat getting stuck under the accelerator/gas pedal. GM and a few other automakers in the 50’s and 60’s put built in floor mats in their vehicles which was a great idea. I’ll admit cars have improved in many areas but have gone back in a few since there are more blind spots with smaller windows and thicker c and b pillars, floor mats that can easily get stuck under the pedals, little to no foot or leg room and even head room in the back seat, and the worst contenders of all is lack of space in the engine bay combined with making certain access to critical engine parts a afterthought since in some cases you have to remove the ENTIRE engine or ENTIRE front end apart just to get access to a certain parts.

 

[ea56]

Electronic Appliance Controls

My dislike of electronic appliance controls stem from my experience with a 2000 Maytag slide in ceramic top electric stove that had electronic controls directly over the top of the oven. A little over a year after I got this stove after I’d recently run a Self Cleaning cycle and two days later was making waffles and tried to turn to oven on at 225F to keep them warm while I finished making all of the waffles. The controls flashed I believe an F3 code (or F something, and the F also stood for what I was thinking at the time). Anyway the oven was kaput and I was told by the Maytag dealer that I bought the stove from, which was BTW just a few months out of its 1 year warranty that it was going to cost $400+ to repair it. I’d only paid about $600 for it and I couldn’t justify spending that much on a stove out of warranty that could very well have something else go wrong with it.

Needless to say I didn’t buy another Maytag stove. When I went out looking for a new stove I was told by more than one person that it was probably the SC cycle that fried the electronic control board, so I opted to not buy another stove with a SC oven.

Last January I bought a new 30” GE electric stove with a ceramic top and a SC oven. The electronic controls are on the back control panel and I hope that this location will make the control board less vulnerable to damage from the heat generated by the SC cycle.

That being said I do like this stove very much and I like the electronic oven controls too. But given the choice I would still prefer my appliances to have analog rather than electronic controls, but I also realize that this unlikely to occur in this lifetime.

Also, I should mention that in 1983 I moved into a rental duplex that had a 1939 Westinghouse 40” electric stove equipped with a delayed start timer for the oven and the original owners manual which I still have. I frequently used that delayed start oven timer and it still worked like a charm on a stove that was 44 years old, so if they could build quality electric oven timers in 1939 that still worked 44 years later seems like it could still be done today. But they would also cost a Kings Ransom too, with the cost you have to pay for quality these days.

Eddie

 

[henene4]

It's not the electronics, it"s the price

You can buy a SC cooker set today for what, 600$? 800$?

That would be less than 100$ in 1970, less than 200$ in 1980 and less than 400$ in 2000.

I don't think you'll find much of ANY product from that price range around today.

A cheap washer today can be had for 400$ or less, and even TOL washers from common brands today can be had for 1000$ or so.
That's like 240$/600$ in 2000, 120$/290$ in 1980 and 55$/135$ in 1970.

Inflation is a b**** - especially in that regard.

Reason I chose those years is that 1970 is about the time a SC oven was more common place, after 1980 was the time electronic controls became common place and 2000 was the last year "good" appliances were common place for most apparently.

You just couldn't get any even remotely comparable appliance in 1970 for the "same" value, barely anything in 1980 and just about something in 2000.

If you are willing to spend 2k$ or more today, you could probably get something that lasts just about as long as a TOL appliance from back in 1970 - simply because adjusted for inflation, you would be spending just about the same.

I don't know how much a GE P7 oven was back then, but a TOL washer was about 300$ or so - which is +/- 2300$ today.
You can buy like 2 TOL or 4 BOL machines for that.
Or one professional machine.

I spent 2k€ on an oven and I do believe that could last 20 years.

 

[iej]

Electronic controls are enormously superior to mechanical. They are reliable if they’re well made and use good quality components and they’re flexible and can use a degree of intelligence in control of the appliance.

There no reason electronic controls are unreliable. They should be much more reliable. Look at a system like Miele’s Novotronic controls - absolutely rock solid for decades at this stage.

Cheap appliances with poor quality components simply aren’t ever going be as good as high quality machines. Electronic or mechanical controls won’t make any difference in that equation.

 

[mattl]

To put a finer point on the cost/value discussion.  I think my folks paid about $700 for the 40" Frigidaire Custom Imperial in 1959. Using an inflation calculator that translates to a little over $7000 today. $7000 ranges are few and far between today. At that price point there would be no need to skimp on any component. But we don't buy $7K ranges today, over $1K and folks balk.

 

The Frigidaire is still around and mostly functional, the clock quit a few years ago, but most everything else works.  The heat minder was removed in the early 60's since it never worked. I cannibalized a CI in the scrap pile and have backups to almost all  the components. Someday I'll swap out the clock and see if the heat minder can be replaced back to original.

 

[volsboy1]

I have to agree with John/Combo52 . Properly done the Electronic ones will outlast the mechanical ones.

I think it mostly has to do with the Nostalgic and the end of a Era which I understand.

My G.E. Harmony washer died last week, the tub bearings went out but the all computer control never had one problem....

 

[DADoES]

 
The parents' 1976 Whirlpool washer had a timer failure, low-speed motor wouldn't run.  Timer replaced, the updated version had a one-stage cool down on Perm Press instead of two-stage.  I don't recall the age of it at the time.

The timer on their 1994 KitchenAid washer failed at 18 years, shaft broke loose from the cams, only way to turn it was by grasping the dial skirt behind the shield.  I had a refurbed Kenmore 90 on-hand so the KA was not repaired.

 

[iej]

I remember a comment that buying an early automatic washing machine in Britain in the 1950s was as expensive as buying a small car. They were seriously high spec piece of equipment in the old days and you can be assured that the components were not cheap.

 

Many of them had more in common with good quality automotive parts than modern appliances, and certainly with the kind of quality you'd probably really only see in serious commercial laundry machines these days.

 

Electronic controls are genuinely a huge leap forward and are cheap and generally reliable. It's very easy to forget how many cheap late 70s, 80s and 90s machines made their way to the dump because of failed electromechanical programmers. We tend to only remember the early machines, much more than those that followed.

 

It also wasn't that unusual for washing machine and dishwasher timers to stick, jam or fail in other ways and I certainly remember in my own younger years washing machines where the timer had been forced backwards, usually by a kid playing with it and deciding to turn the controls anticlockwise - a rather expensive repair!

 

The other aspect of the move towards electronics has been solid state switching and the ability to slice, dice and create AC wave forms to drive induction motors smoothly at variable speeds and in either direction, without cumbersome and complex mechanical or clunky electrical components that were prone to breaking, failing, squeaking or generally just being noisy (brushes) and so on. It's also allowed motors to become smaller, zero maintenance and generally very efficient.

 

[maytag85]

Electronic controls can be reliable, BUT don’t like sitting for long periods of time. Some of you guys have probably seen the thread of my Maytag A606 and DG606 back in 2019 but spent many hours trying to get the electronic dry control to work, even tried soldering the wires directly to the control board (yes, my soldering skills weren’t the best), that didn’t work either and basically tried everything to get it to work but to no avail. Ever since I put a timer in, I haven’t had ANY issues in the 3 years I’ve been using on and off. I don’t know how long my Maytag A606 set sat but it must have been at least 20 or more years since timer was quite stiff, the electronic dry control certainly didn’t like sitting for that long and if it were a 306 or even 406/407, I wouldn’t have had to do that much to it to get it operational again.

 

[iej]

There's no particular reason why electronic controls would have any issue sitting for a long time. They have no, or at least extremely few, moving parts.

 

It sounds like there was some kind of fault with the board or the conductivity sensor.

 

[ea56]

Re: Reply#18

Please take a look at these attached links.

According to this link I instinctively acted in the exact correct manner by putting my car into neutral when the accelerator stuck. This article explains in detail just why it is important to put the car into neutral when the accelerator is stuck. They also point out that trying to stop a runaway vehicle with the brakes while still in gear is next to impossible and that the brakes can overheat and then not function at all.

I don’t mean to belabor this this issue, but anyone that may ever has to face this problem while driving should know that you have a split second to react, and how you react could mean life or death.

Dealing with a stuck accelerator

A jammed gas pedal could make your car accelerate to full speed in a matter of moments. Under such circumstances, it is unlikely that normal braking will have much effect, as the brakes will be competing against the engine. Use the steps outlined here to bring your vehicle back under control when unintended acceleration strikes.

1

Stay calm.
Every decision you make between now and the moment you stop your vehicle must be thought through – your life depends on it.
2

Shift the car into neutral.
Remember that you must use the clutch to do this in a manual transmission vehicle. This step is vitally important; find out why in the next section.
3

Push both feet firmly down on the brake pedal and hold them there.
In most runaway car situations, the brakes do not work because the driver cannot press down on them hard enough.
4

Hold the brake steady and scan the road ahead for an escape route,
such as a hard shoulder. Do not change lanes quickly as this could cause you to lose control of the car when traveling at high speed.
5

If you cannot shift into neutral, you should shut off the engine to initiate the vehicle slowing. Do not take the key out of the ignition.
These are general guidelines that are intended to work with most vehicles, in most situations. You should also check your vehicle operator’s manual for more specific information relating to stuck accelerators and emergency stops.

Shifting into neutral

Whatever the vehicle or situation, shifting to neutral is a vital part of bringing a runaway vehicle to a stop. Drivers of automatic cars often forget that their vehicle can be switched into neutral and overlook this important step. Shifting the engine to neutral will make it easier to slow the vehicle, by taking power away from the engine. If you leave the car in “drive”, you will be attempting to brake against the full force of the engine. This is a battle you are unlikely to win before the brakes overheat.

Shutting off the engine

There is a great deal of debate over whether the engine should immediately be shut off in the event of a jammed gas pedal, or whether it should be left on until the car has safely stopped. No unified expert answer exists for this conundrum, as there are pros and cons to both courses of action. Whether you should switch your engine off or not depends on the vehicle you are driving and the circumstances surrounding the stuck accelerator. Check your driver’s manual for state-specific guidance and your car operator’s manual for vehicle-specific guidance.

Switching off the engine would mean an immediate loss of your power-assisted steering and braking. When the vehicle is hurtling along at speed, you may need power brakes to bring it to a stop even with the engine shut down. Lack of power steering could make it practically impossible to maneuver the car when traveling at speed. There is also the danger that turning the key in the ignition could activate the steering lock, which would be disastrous.

The opposing argument states that shutting the engine off may be the most effective way to cut power. It could be essential if you cannot shift the car into neutral. Plus, shifting the vehicle into neutral will cause older car engines to over-rev, resulting in permanent damage. Newer cars are built with rev limiters, so this should not be a problem. At any rate, your life is worth far more to you than a car engine.

BTW, putting the car in neutral is also the correct answer to this question a the DMV test.

Eddie

https://www.epermittest.com/drivers-education/stuck-accelerator[this post was last edited: 6/30/2022-11:55]

What should you do if your accelerator sticks while you are driving?

What should you do if your accelerator sticks while you are driving? - Real 2025 DMV Questions

www.dmv-written-test.com

 

[iej]

In a situation like that you only cut the engine when you're stopped, unless it's on fire! You need the servo assisted brakes and possibly power steering.

 

Manual car: Hold down clutch and don't let it up, brake, get into neutral and continue to brake until you're in control and in a safe spot. When parked, hand brake / parking brake and switch off.

 

Automatic: brake, get into neutral, continue to brake until you are in control and in a safe spot and stop, hold foot brake, then switch off the engine and only then apply park. Don't skip through drive or reverse if the accelerator / gas pedal is stuck while the engine is revving.

 

Electric / hybrid: Brake and it should recognise you're sending conflicting pedal inputs and slow, usually giving you a warning that you're pressing the accelerator and brake simultaneously. Continue to break, go into neutral and drift to a safe place, hold foot brake, power down and park and apply parking brake.

 

[Chetlaham]

Not Belaboring- This needs to be discussed.

Food for thought:



Neither the shifter, brakes or ignition worked according to the 911 call. Car flipped over 5 times, so I doubt it was an intentional stunt.

The thing is, even if the PRNDL is not interlocked, in some cars it can take an extreme amount of physical effort to shift a transmission into neutral while going at very high speeds.

I am truly of the firm belief that all cars should be equipped with emergency kill switches- one that cuts the fuel to the engine and another that breaks hard copper wire cutting off power to all engine components as a last ditch resort.

Consider that emergency engine generators, even those that power life safety, fire pumps and life support equipment are required by code to have a hard wired E-stop button in the event of crisis.

 

[iej]

That’s a horrendous incident, but it genuinely does seem rather bizarre. There isn’t anything unusually automated in that car and it seems to be a highly unusual combination of simultaneous failures. It would be interesting to see what the manufacturer and the federal safety agencies make of it.

There’s a lot of additional automation and crash protect in modern cars, and they’re extremely regulated and evolving all the time. As automation increases, which it inevitably will, there should be an obvious way to disable it and take control, but in the crash it doesn’t look like the car had acting particularly unusual in terms of systems. It seems to be a freak incident that’s still unexplained.

In general though, stopping the engine at high speed is a very bad idea as you lose the servo assisted brakes and power steering, which can make a car rather hard to control.