-=> George White said to Greg Mayman
 -=> about "{at}%^{at}#$%^ VEROBOARD" on 03-28-04  23:09.....

 GW> Probably not, the stuff I worked on was for commercial vehicles and
 GW> had to last _much_ longer than the stuff on cars. Typically a
 GW> truck/bus would be expected to do in a year the total lifetime mileage
 GW> of a car (ie about 100,000 miles). Time off road for a small component
 GW> to be fixed costs lots of real money, so they'll pay more up front -
 GW> it matters to the operators.
 
Yes. Those thermal flashers had the habit of failing at the most
unpredictable and inconvenient times, or worse still working well
when the generator or alternator had pushed the battery up to its
max voltage and then failing to work when the engine dropped back
to an idle.

The one on my friend's Mitsubishi van did just that. It is tucked
way up behind the dashboard where you can only see it with a
mirror on a stick, and darned if anyone with normal size hands
can grasp it enough to unplug it. It took an auto electrician
about 15 minutes to get the old one out and the new one plugged
in.

OTOH my Ford van of about the same vintage has an electronic
flasher that is tucked away in the side of the glovebox -- easy
to reach, not at all hard to unscrew and remove, and it hasn't
looked like failing in over twenty years.

That sounds like Murphy's Law again 

 GW> In the "old days" we used them... The capacitor was, if
memory serves,
 GW> a 500 micro farad unit. But remember too that we were working on 24v
 GW> systems and were able to specify the relay totally (we made them!).

Ah, yes, the high resitance, highly sensitive relay! That would
make a BIG difference!

The ones I experimented with were just ordinary general purpose
relays, with fairly low resistance and hefty contacts.

   ,-./\
  /     \ From Greg Mayman, in beautiful Adelaide, South Australia
  \_,-*_/    "Queen City of The South"    34:55 S  138:36 E
       v

... There is no sin except stupidity. - Oscar Wilde
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