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[guest7]

A recent comment by Andy Metcalf made me think, are we being a little reactionary and hasty in dismissing modern conveniences like fuel injection and little black boxes controlling the bike's performance?

I think the point he made was that these items may be expensive to replace, but should rarely need replacing anyway.

Then another chum recalled when the Honda 750/4 was launched and everyone wittered on about their complexity and how could a mere mortal do any work on one? They now seem laughably simple.

My viewpoint is that a bike should be as simple as possible becuase:
1. it makes it easier to work on
2. there's less to go wrong

Having said that, my bikes have electronic ignition, amongst other 'modern' conveniences.

So.... increased technology, a needless step or an aid to reliability?
GC

[squirrelciv]

You do set a toughy GC :-) I'm all for any technology that can be worked on by myself. So electric boots for example are fine because I can understand whats happening and stand a good chance of fixing it should it break. Problem for me is technology we use but don't understand. Like this bloody thing I'm typing on Problem is this sort of stuff is provided to reach high levels of performance and keep things within legitimate constraints for noise/polution etc etc. I prefer to do things the russian way and keep within those restraints at the cost of performance and so keep it simple. Lets be honest here, we can't use the performance gained legally anyway. Technology is forever being held up as the universal solution to all mans problems, but seems to create as many new ones as it cures. Problem is we can't go back to when life was less complicated, you can only go forward, even though the horizon is black.
Quietly confident we will stumble forward using machines we have absolutely no understanding of and trading them in when they break/turn obsolete and fill our role of drone for the corperate machine.
Heyho, time to leave the red wine alone and get a coffee, me thinks.

[Steve Lake]

mmmmmmmmm well, having earned my living working on new technology since i left school (some bloke called Marconi was on the same apprentice scheme as me!)
I shouldn't rock the boat too much should I......but............we have......all of us, wittingly or unwittingly been using 'modern technology' for many years.
And until recently (probably around about when most people had, or had access to, a computer) no-one worried about not knowing how it worked, the typewriter is a good example, in the 50's and 60's there were probably as many typewriters as there are pc's today, no-one worried about how, when you pressed a key a character appeared on the page, it just did. It was a tool in the workplace, and treated as such. And that is how computers and other technology should be viewed imho.
Today, I feel cost of replacement of this technology is less worrying than the environmental cost of manufacture.....an example......I am in the process of installing a wind turbine, very green, very comendable you might think, but is it? I have probably used half a ton of angle iron to make a pylon, then there's the generator itself, the carbon cost of manufacturing these items will probably never be recovered by the 'free' electricity I will be generating.
Anyway..... drifting off the point here a bit, my SRX's have a 'black box' no point in trying to understand it, 'cos it's a sealed item, if it's broke, replace it, all it is, is a replacement for the advance/retard/points system, and as such far far better and more reliable.....the voltage regulator is another case in point. BUT.....personally, thats about as far as you need to go on a vehicle as far as i'm concerned. Have a wonderful Christmas everyone (I'm sure you'll all probably be using the microwave over the festive period, AND not worrying about how it works!) (and being a nerdy sort of bloke....the microwave, has at its core...a klystron.....developed during the second world war for producing high powered radar signals.....reputedly the ground based signals engineers used to reheat their meals/tea/coffee etc  by placing them in front of the scanners, and in the 60's in our servicing bays our christmas party trick was to turn the scanners inwards and strap a neon bulb or flourescent tube to your head and take to the dance floor.......how we laughed...)
 

[guest18]

(Hmmm mental note to self, ask Steve dumb questions about electronics!)

But moving on to the question... it depends(!) On my MZ I don't really care that the ignition is controlled by a black box that I don't understand, as long as it works or I can get a spare cheaply and quickly.

If I were driving somewhere remote and without assistance I'd want points because if they're fixable then I can fix them, and with no proper tools as well!

I think the technology in bikes is used in the wrong direction, we (the buying public) have become obsessed with performance in pure speed terms, resulting in fragile, impractical and expensive bikes. We *have* the technology to build reliable, durable and affordable bikes... but is there a market?

I think before we decide if a particular piece of technology is "good" or "bad" we have to decide what the purpose of that technology is (and I don't mean to make a spark so the bike goes! I mean is it to allow cheaper production, to make the bike more reliable, or efficient, or repairable by untrained pers? etc etc) we can only then make an objective assessment of whether or  not it is a piece of technology which is 1 successful or not in achieving the design aims and 2 fits our requirements.

Smiled at the dancing with neon tubes thing though, you old raver lol. Works with most RF transmitters, we used to use a flourescent tube to prove to people that a tx pushes out potentially harmful stuff by transmitting and holding the tube near an antenna. Haven't tried it with a mobile phone mind you... must try sometime

[Andy M]

A recent comment by Andy Metcalf made me think, are we being a little reactionary and hasty in dismissing modern conveniences like fuel injection and little black boxes controlling the bike's performance?



So.... increased technology, a needless step or an aid to reliability?
GC

OMG, somebody is paying attention to what I say!

I too work with technology and have come to think of these developments in stages. Excuse the truck brake stuff, but here's an example:

1975: Trucks are on air brakes and a few hydraulics. You can fix these with tools that have been about since the 1850's unless you get a real pig when you need gauges.
1982: ABS is mandatory, a real safety improvement. If you are clever you can fix it with a multimeter but its a total piece of **** with a diagnostic device.
1987: ECU's start with CAN, they talk to other ECU's via binary code. Unlike the relay that one ECU controlled to stop another doing something you can't see the function. Plug in a hideously expensive tester and you can make one ECU transmit the message and see the function. Any clown with the tester can change the right bit, even the most experienced technician guesses if he's only got a test lamp.
1992: EBS, so called "brake by wire", the truck makes better use of its' brakes has beter reaction times and so on. As everything is on CAN you get PC diagnostics.

The problems occur when you get a guy using 1850's tools on a 1990's system. The dealerships tend to hold off buying the right gear for about 10 years, which given the pace of development isn't good. I used to know dealerships that kept feeler gauges and cam setting tools locked up. Have your engine fixed on nights and they'd use fag paper to set the clearances! (for the sake of a nail the shoe was lost, for the sake of a shoe the horse was lost....etc.).  The same is true today of the laptop, the ****ers keep it in the bosses office.

However, given that we have a nice little trade in gauges, setting pins and so on today, I predict (at risk of this coming back to haunt me) that sometime pretty soon (after some EU legistlation that comes in in 2007) you will be able to download a host of PC diagnostic stuff for your bike. The problem at the minute is the interfaces. These little black boxes convert vehicle signals into the PC ones. At the minute every manufacturer uses a different one and they charge rip of prices. I can't tell you what we make but the percentage profit is big if you don't argue. We don't sell enough to really get the price down. That said, what did they charge for a decent set of feeler gauges in 1850 when they had to compare to a standard in London?

So, given the choice of a 60 hp 500cc bike with plug and play diagnostics or an 18 hp 500 you can fix with a few tools and a lot of knowledge, which way do you go? I prefer my PC and EBS in most cases for a brake system. You plug in, it tells you the problem , you change a bit and fire it off, it works. Setting a twin leading shoe drum is fun but you do after all want to ride not play with brakes don't you?

What does worry me is technology for the sake of it, driven by the marketing department. OK, carbs can be pigs to set, waste fuel and make pollution when set rich, so FI is better? Why then would my Grandads BSA do 80 mpg in 1951 on awful fuel? He wasn't the greatest mechanic but he kept it going with nothing but tools and a book that came with it. What is there is the PC diagnostic fuel injected world that compares? Maybe it'll come with bio-fuel etc. but at the minute they seem to simply add weight and then power to make up for it.

Andy

[guest27]

Mmmmm

Thinks back to the time when the Triton was running.  Started off with pints and zenor diodes (Ok cannot spell today) - would spend a reasonable amount of time setting the points, putting the AR bobs back on, getting them right, setting the timing, soldering on wires etc, would be a pig to start but run OK.  Would blow diodes from time to time - and they cooked up nice.  Then bought a Boyer box for it - a couple of hours setting it up - OK lots of coffee to - and did not touch it again in 4 years.  Bike started first or second kick and ran better. Diodes still blew from tme to time - which made me start looking at a more 'technological' approach to voltage management - then the Triton blew its guts over the mountain on the IoM and we got no further.

Whilst it was fun to play with the points I wanted to ride it - and if I were foolish enough to take it to the outback I would rather take a spare boyer with me than all the odds and sods for the points.

The point about worrying about how 'puters work - agree so much.  Could not understand why people wanted PC's when you had to fight with MS-DOS or Windows 3, when in many cases an Apple Mac would do the job and worked.  The teccies I worked with claimed it was because the Mac was not a real puter and you could not get into the operating system to sort things out - well you could but they did not know how to - however I supported more people using Macs than they did supporting PCs in the business, and I spent much more time sat on the desk chatting up the pretty girls, because most of the time the problem with the Mac was that they had filed the document in the wrong place or had spilled their coffee in the keyboard. - Did not need to know how it worked or how to get to the OS.

Looking at Jen's grandads journal of his BSA - started 16/6/1929 - he seems to have spent more time making bits and fettling bits on his bikes and cars than riding them. - ie bought bike on 16/6/29, decoked 24/7/29, lighting set failed 11/8/29, bearings grating - 26/8/29   no date - but had to modify a nut for rear hub, - no date, replaced speedo cabel etc etc etc.

R

[Steve Lake]

Doh..........there's me saying that a klystron is at the heart of a microwave oven, when I should have said a Magnetron! silly me..........and you were all too polite to point out my mistake.........

[guest27]

Doh..........there's me saying that a klystron is at the heart of a microwave oven, when I should have said a Magnetron! silly me..........and you were all too polite to point out my mistake.........

Nah - we have all cooked our brains with leaky microwave ovens.  Friend to show how microwave ovens are screened, to his son, put his mobile phone in the oven and called it.  Of course because the phone runs on very low power microwaves and the oven on loads, and because the oven is screened to stop stray microwaves cooking your brain the phone would not ring.

Ahh but it did.........

Second useless bit of info - years ago a major motor manufacturer was having problems with batches of vans not working because of defective ECUs.  Hammered the supplier etc, then they spotted that these vans were only produced at 'break times' - the line ran past the 'canteen' with all the reheat microwave ovens in, and the so called screening was allowing the ECUs to be cooked.  (Uncle was involved in that one in some function)

As I said useless info.

R