How the 4A-GE ECU works

[Red]

"Sorry, my fault. I misread your earlier post. " Not a problem. If I was posting in Finnish, we'd have a problem!

"But I would expect the main PCB soldering to have been done on a machine as it is so neat and even." Well, there are folks who literally do whole-board soldering of SMP components in a kitchen toaster-oven! It can be done and if done well, it is identical to the soldering done on a production line. Except, production lines mean inventory and Japan Inc. has always been against inventory.

"Those little black ICs are also filled with black sealant and they take a fair amount of work with a scalpel to get them open. " Yes, sometimes it seems like the whole electronics industry thinks that will keep the competition from seeing what they are doing. Of course, it won't keep out anyone but hobbyists. But sometimes, the gunk is there to ensure water can't get it and loose solder joints won't form, and to dissipate heat.

"I've seen quite a few Denso ECUs and one thing they appear to do is have a manual inspection rather than optical. " I'm not sure I understand what you mean. Usually, after a board is assembled, a different person with a large magnifier will visually inspect it for obvious defects like solder bridges or cold solder joints, or SMPs that are out of place. Visual inspection is incredibly effective when done properly

"It's as if someone checked all the ICs went in the right way round and marked them by hand with a white mark. Maybe I'm wrong about this as I'm really only guessing. " Sounds like you are right, and that is visual inspection.

"(what a fun job that must have been...) " Well, it the guy who cleans out the toilet waste tanks on jumbo jets probably thinks it would be a step up.<G>

When SONY first attacked the US television market in the 60s/70s, they performed a "300% quality control" program. Literally, every component was electrically tested before assembly, then after sub assembly, then the entire TV was tested as a unit before it shipped. This was incredibly expensive, but it earned them a reputation for top quality. You never heard someone say they had bought a SONY TV which was DOA (dead on arrival, didn't work brand new out of the box.) So SONY got the reputation as "expensive but excellent" and their patent on the Trinitron picture tube of course gave them a unique good picture.

They have long since stopped this 300% QC program, and in fact their quality has dropped in many products made in many countries (I found four cold solder joints in one small FM radio, obviously no little white check marks<G&gt but market pressures to compete on price forced them to change. A friend of mine bought a Korean TV, Samsung I think, in the aerly 90's and he had to take back two to get a third one that simply worked out of the box. But, it was half the price of a SONY, and for half price he was willing to gamble on that.

Since the US car market was already used to the military-grade electronics made by Motorola and Delco in Detroit cars, I assume that Japan felt some pressure to make sure their electronics would be up to par. The same clever way they figured out that Americans wouldn't be so upset by "there's no local dealer if I need repairs" if the cars just didn't NEED the repairs very often.

A lesson our own carmakers *still* seem not to have learned.