>You might have a stereo or car that goes for years and years
>but a brand new one may have troubles right from the beginning
>and never be completely right

A friend of my fathers got involved with such a car. He was friendly with a 
mechanic at a local garage that had sold a Japanese second hand import to a 
customer. It was an exceptionally low mileage for a Japanese import, and the 
reason seemed to be that it would intermittently stop dead. Dads friend got 
involved, as his mechanic mate knew of his expertise in electronics, and 
after several attempts at repair, they eventually nailed it to a cold solder 
joint somewhere in the ignition/distributor/EMU. It would seem the original 
dealer in Japan had never got to the bottom of the problem, because it was 
going to cost too much to replace the necessary FRU which would have sorted 
out the problem, so it got on-sold earlier than usual.

When we do failure analysis on instruments for space, one of the biggest 
sources of likely failure is solder joints. 

-- 
http://www.piclist.com PIC/SX FAQ & list archive
View/change your membership options at
http://mailman.mit.edu/mailman/listinfo/piclist