How Speedometers Work By: William Harris | Apr 29, 2023 A mechanical speedometer. Photo courtesy of Dreamstime The dashboard instrument cluster in your car organizes a variety of sensors and gauges, including the oil pressure gauge, coolant temperature gauge, fuel level gauge, tachometer and...
How different parts and sensors work in your car. Symptoms, testing, common problems, illustrations, replacement
Sensors like this can also be used to measure speed (for example, to count how fast a wheel or car engine cam or crankshaft is rotating). You'll often find them in electronic speedometers and anemometers (wind-speed meters), where they can be used in a similar way to reed switches....
They do this by equipping a vehicle with sensors that are on the lookout for unusual heavy braking. When you slam on your brakes and risk over-braking the wheels into a dangerous lock, this trips the sensor into decreasing the brake pressure on the wheel [source: AIADA]. By doing this,...
Wheel speed sensors in each wheel monitor wheel speed. If one or more wheels nears lockup, the ABS computer will momentarily release and apply pressure to that brake, up to 15 times per second. Essentially, ABS “pumps the brakes” for you, but on individual wheels. When braking, keep st...
they can be found in vehicles as wheel speed sensors as well as crankshaft or camshaft position sensors. Also they are often used as switches, MEMS compasses, proximity sensors and so on. Now we will go through some of these sensors and see how they work, but first let’s explain what ...
Wheel speed sensors Wheel speed sensors use a toothed wheel attached to the vehicle’s wheel and a magnet surrounded by a coil to determine wheel speed. As the teeth pass by the magnet, the magnetic field fluxes and creates a current. Seat occupancy sensor The seat occupancy sensor uses a ...
The xDrive system works in tandem with Dynamic Stability Control (DSC) and uses information from the system's wheel-speed sensors to monitor road conditions. In addition, the system applies brake force when there is a traction difference between the two sides of the vehicle and wheel spin is ...
Acceleration is much more interesting than speed and more useful if you need to get out of danger behind the wheel: it's how quickly something can speed up or slow down. Measuring acceleration is a bit more tricky than measuring speed because it involves figuring out how speed changes over ...
How Speedometers Work By: William Harris | Apr 29, 2023 A mechanical speedometer. Photo courtesy of Dreamstime The dashboard instrument cluster in your car organizes a variety of sensors and gauges, including the oil pressure gauge, coolant temperature gauge, fuel level gauge, tachometer and...