A routine check on my 2007 Toyota Avalon revealed my front bake pads was wearing more on one side than on the other on each of the two wheels, a sign that something was wrong with my calipers. My car has 52,000 highway miles and the pads were only about half worn. I decided to replace the pads anyway as a precaution not to have to do this type of work in the winter months.
To my anger and disappointment I had extremely great difficulty removing the lower caliper pins as they were totally frozen. Rotating it with an air gun did nothing but spun it in place. Finally heating and banging it outwards on the pin head while someone turn it back and forth with a wrench got it out. They were totally pitted with rust and totally damaged including the boots. I have owned cars for more than forty years and for the first time ever experienced anything like this in a less than three year old car with such low mileage. It is obvious monkeys assembled these calipers and did not put any grease on these pins as is required.
I called Toyota to complain and they told me they can’t believe the word of an independent mechanic and that I am supposed to take my car to a dealer on regular intervals for check-ups, as if they would have pulled out these pins to inspect them. I told them I have the pitted, rusted damaged pins for them to investigate. But they had no interest. Their only defense was that I should have taken my car to a Toyota dealer.
When your lab is only one scope, one meter, and one homebrew function generator and power supply, the scope is stage center. But this one wasn't working right.
From Dell / Intel® New Paradigms in Design Work Scott Hamilton, vertical market strategist for Dell Precision workstations, 5/2/2013 5
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For industrial control applications, or even a simple assembly line, that machine can go almost 24/7 without a break. But what happens when the task is a little more complex? That’s where the “smart” machine would come in. The smart machine is one that has some simple (or complex in some cases) processing capability to be able to adapt to changing conditions. Such machines are suited for a host of applications, including automotive, aerospace, defense, medical, computers and electronics, telecommunications, consumer goods, and so on. This radio show will show what’s possible with smart machines, and what tradeoffs need to be made to implement such a solution.
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