h a l f b a k e r yCrust or bust.
add, search, annotate, link, view, overview, recent, by name, best, random
news, help, about, links, report a problem
browse anonymously,
or get an account
and write.
register,
|
|
|
Oil Leak Alarm
Let owners know there car is leaking oil before a visible drip. | |
It used to be relatively easy to know your car was leaking oil; there would be a puddle underneath it. But now most cars, especially the nicer ones, are made with plastic or aluminum panels on the bottom for aerodynamic purposes. The downside of this is that if oil leaks it will collect on the plate
and you don't know about it until enough has collected that it runs over the sides. By this time it is a pretty big mess and the problem could be getting worse. So cars with these underside panels should have a detector for leaked oil. It could be a moisture sensor, or possibly infrared, located in a key location under the engine-transmission gasket, and trigger an "oil leak" light on the dash.
[link]
|
| |
What about the water that gets under those panels during an underbody car wash or driving through puddles that occur quite frequently in many places such as Washington, Oregon, California, and Texas? Or even the moisture in the air in humid environments like Florida, Georgia, Louisiana, Alabama, Mississippi? Wouldn't that generate a lot of false alarms and result in the alarm being ignored? What about all the other important fluids that tend to leak, such as coolant, transmission fluid, power steering fluid? They are all different chemicals, and one sensor wouldn't work for all of them. A dedicated oil spill sensor would do my car little good, as it holds its oil well but leaks everything else. [-] |
|
| |
oil is everywhere. Some level of seepage is accepted, even in modern cars (this seepage lubricates the seal, extending its life). Oil wouldn't trigger a "water" sensor. I really dislike adding finicky expensive "features" to cars that the users will just be confused by and where the money could have been better spent on simply making the components more robust. BONES |
|
| |
Hence the infrared sensor. The IR light is aimed at a shiny piece of metal at the very bottom of the car. When nothing is on top of it the light return will be very high. If water gets on there the return would be lower, but still withing parameters. But add some dark oil or other colored fluid and it trips the warning light. |
|
| |
Humidity tends to fog up IR lenses. It happens frequently with aircraft IR sensors, and has resulted in several crashes. To prevent fogging, the sensors have to be preheated to boil out the moisture and operationally checked before each flight. They are very prone to error and require constant maintenance to ensure reliable performance. Far from ideal on a car, which most people expect to require almost no maintenance. |
|
| |
Well I like the IR sensor idea. Different substances have different IR spectrum absorption characteristics, and the receiving sensor could undergo frequency sweeps to analyse which specific frequencies have been absorbed.
A computer database then identifies the measured substance based on its absorption characteristics.
Similar techniques are used to separate various plastics in recycling centres. [+] |
|
| |
The undertrays fitted to road cars have, of neccesity, drain features which prevent them from filling up with water. This works just as well with any fluid, so the problem you're trying to solve doesn't exist. |
|
| |
Oil spill is often on a very small scale, small enough to become bound to dust&dirt on the undertray, never dripping down. I like the 'something should be done' - aspect of the idea, the 'something' is a little quarterbaked, though. |
|
| |