The Well-Linuxed Car

[Tony Alfrey]

On Monday 01 December 2003 07:42 am, David A. Bandel wrote:
> On Mon, 1 Dec 2003 15:15:30 +0100
> Roger Oberholtzer <roger at opq.se> wrote:
>
> [snip]
>
> > Even something as 'innocent' as an RS-232 port takes on new
> > problems in a vehicle if the equipment at both ends are not sharing
> > the same ground sense.
>
> Boy have you hit a biggie on the head.  And since a vehicle doesn't
> have a true ground in the full sense of the term, you nailed it with
> "ground sense".  All equipment _must_ see the same ground from their
> point of view or you'll get all kinds of strange behavior and odd
> burnouts.  I see this problem on boats all the time. Aircraft share
> the same problem.
>
> Ciao,
>
> David A. Bandel

"Star" ground.  Each piece of hardware has a ground wire that is run all 
the way back to some common ground point near the battery (hence the 
"star") and ideally, each piece of electronics is "floated" wherever it 
is installed in the car frame.

-- 
Tony Alfrey
tonyalfrey at earthlink.net
"I'd rather be sailing"