Are HVAC knobs electronic

[kvermeer]

I miss the days of good 'ole hard-wire cables and sliders on the dash. Nothing to go tits up electrically.

After 20 years of disuse, I merely needed to replace the blend door cable on my CJ:

Completely analog! You could feel the actual dampers moving on their cams as you pushed and pulled the knobs.

I am a little tempted to get an old Jeep speedometer, embed it in the center storage door, and drive it with a couple steppers. I fear it's too large in diameter to fit, but those doors are pretty large.

https://www.ebay.com/itm/800329479537

Maybe leave the background acetate as-is, maybe reprint it with a battery indicator in the fuel gauge and similar equivalencies...

 

[cadblu]

Amen to that. My Subaru was great, but the blend motor buried in the dash would slowly fail over time.

Any idea what Subí would have charged for this repair? I’m sitting down.

 

[007]

The dials must be electronic. Typically those types of controls are either electronic, vacuum controlled, or mechanical linkages to air doors and coolant valves. There seems to be electric switches also.

 

[nicomalo]

IMO Assuming these are electronic, I would imagine you could set the HVAC to whatever you would like via the app (if you have the telematics module). Then, when you actually get in the vehicle and start it, it would revert to the settings of the HVAC on the dash.

 

[tubes]

Any idea what Subí would have charged for this repair? I’m sitting down.

The part was reasonable at $80 including shipping. Labor charge was 2 hours, so we're looking around $500 which you see quoted online.

Reddit techs bitch a lot that this job's 2 hour book rate is cutting it close, however, a few of them have shortcuts they've developed that require small hands. In that case, only about half of what I disassembled needs to be done. I don't have small hands, so I can't use their shortcut. Like everything else, experience matters when you are working with fasteners blind, so a good tech can do the job in less than 2 hours, but it is a real pain no matter what.

 

[Trace26]

Electronic doesn't necessarily mean digital. Simple rheostats for the fan and temp and a multi-pole switch for the mode would be a typical low-cost/low-complexity solution.

I thought the choices were cables or electronic. Not sure what you mean by digital?

 

[Frozen North]

Any idea what Subí would have charged for this repair? I’m sitting down.

Check the repair pal site. That is how they got their start. My bet is $1500.

 

[Doctors Do Little]

I've retrofitted remote starters into older cars with 3-knob controls, you learn to live with it. If it's been warmed up and you've just got minimum-fan heat on your toes to finish the drive home, but the next time you drive will be a snowy morning, you just switch it to max heat, medium fan, and defrost when you park it at night. Turn the radio down so you don't get your ears assaulted, pull your CD and switch to your morning audiobook, whatever you need to do.

The next morning you can start it in the driveway while drinking your coffee and the windshield will be clear by the time you're ready to leave. It's not hard, just takes a bit of forethought!

Yeah, if you don't know when you'll drive it next or what the conditions will be you can't preset it, but it's relatively infrequent that you want either high AC or high heat.

They could have physical indicators and still override them from the telematics module: the most recent control can take precedence, so if you set it to heat from the app while the knobs are telling the climate control unit to provide cold air the marking will just not indicate correctly until you wiggle the knob.

I'd argue it would be less expensive and less complicated to use a 10k pot and computerized motor drivers than true control knobs that pass real current through big rheostats.

Me thinks you’ve played this disc before! Nice description and most likely the case out of the box.

 

[007]

I thought the choices were cables or electronic. Not sure what you mean by digital?

No. That sounds like automatic climate control. It's not quite that digital. There was another discussion about climate control and disagreement about what climate control really is. I don't see any temperature digits on the dials. Therefore I don't consider it climate control. It looks like you need to push the knobs in to engage the function and the light on the knob will light when engaged. I know the digits and my hands can do that. Not sure if electrics will do that.

 

[Moe]

This is another one of those wait and see things. Not having telematics is one of the attractions for me but different strokes for different folks.

 

[FlyHappy]

I think it is a reality that there will not be remote control of the HVAC, whether by fob or app/telematics; merely on or off - and the hvac will merely run as per its dials, meaning 'last setting'.

while it is *possible* to have software override the type of system we presume Slate to have (based on dial appearance), it simply would make no sense. If remote hvac control were a priority to Slate engineers, they simply would have designed it in the first place with a rudimentary, digital climate control system. That literally would have been simpler then automating the apparant physical controls that they wanted to promote (ie, the "simplicity").

This kind of falls into the "be careful what you wish for" category. We wanted simple, we got simple; now we gotta live with it.

I'm not too tweaked, it is what it is. I'll adapt.

 

[Moe]

I think it is a reality that there will not be remote control of the HVAC, whether by fob or app/telematics; merely on or off - and the hvac will merely run as per its dials, meaning 'last setting'.

That’s how I see it.

 

[petefromwisconsin]

Electronic doesn't necessarily mean digital. Simple rheostats for the fan and temp and a multi-pole switch for the mode would be a typical low-cost/low-complexity solution.

Rheostats were at one time used for instrument panel lights but heater fan speed was controlled by multiple taps on the motor windings and a multi-position rotary switch. That is because it's tough to dissipate 100 or more Watts on a rheostat to vary the fan speed.

 

[petefromwisconsin]

I think it is a reality that there will not be remote control of the HVAC, whether by fob or app/telematics; merely on or off - and the hvac will merely run as per its dials, meaning 'last setting'.

while it is *possible* to have software override the type of system we presume Slate to have (based on dial appearance), it simply would make no sense. If remote hvac control were a priority to Slate engineers, they simply would have designed it in the first place with a rudimentary, digital climate control system. That literally would have been simpler then automating the apparant physical controls that they wanted to promote (ie, the "simplicity").

This kind of falls into the "be careful what you wish for" category. We wanted simple, we got simple; now we gotta live with it.

I'm not too tweaked, it is what it is. I'll adapt.

>- This kind of falls into the "be careful what you wish for" category. We wanted simple, we got simple; now we gotta live with it. -<
That's right. I want heater controls that still work when my Slate is 25 years old, and fully manual controls make that more likely.

 

[FlyHappy]

>- This kind of falls into the "be careful what you wish for" category. We wanted simple, we got simple; now we gotta live with it. -<
That's right. I want heater controls that still work when my Slate is 25 years old, and fully manual controls make that more likely.

I'm not necessarily disagreeing. I have two functional 25 yo cars in my driveway.
At the same time.... the nature of Slates battery (and same can be said of all EV's out there now) make it unlikely that any will be viable in 25 years; chemistry suggests this is the case.