Today I Learned (TIL)

TIL: The US is going to stop producing pennies.  I understand that the recommendation was for merchants to simply round prices either up or down.  Haha, just kidding about that down part.

wae said:

TIL: The US is going to stop producing pennies.  I understand that the recommendation was for merchants to simply round prices either up or down.  Haha, just kidding about that down part.

Who pays with cash for any transaction over a few bucks?  And how many sub-$5.00 purchases do you make?

I've been saying this for years.

The penny has been underwater for decades.

Duke said:

wae said:

TIL: The US is going to stop producing pennies.  I understand that the recommendation was for merchants to simply round prices either up or down.  Haha, just kidding about that down part.

Who pays with cash for any transaction over a few bucks?  And how many sub-$5.00 purchases do you make?

I've been saying this for years.

That's how it's worked here, we got rid of the penny years ago. 

They do actually round down, but as Duke says, who uses cash any more? I don't use it for any transactions now if I don't have to.

Duke said:

wae said:

TIL: The US is going to stop producing pennies.  I understand that the recommendation was for merchants to simply round prices either up or down.  Haha, just kidding about that down part.

Who pays with cash for any transaction over a few bucks?  And how many sub-$5.00 purchases do you make?

I've been saying this for years.

 

 

Me.

In reply to wae :

Me too. Every month, Mrs and I each take a modest cash allowance for incidentals. She also pulls the monthly grocery budget in cash. Visually confirming how much cash is available before payday does a lot to prevent careless spending.

The "shut off the fuel pump if there's no spark" logic on an '85 Volvo 240 is inside the fuel pump relay.

I'm guessing it's an RC timer circuit that gets topped up at each spark and drains far enough to cut the relay if there's no spark for X time.

Explains how you can get some weird behavior out of a fuel pump old enough to contain middle-aged capacitors.

Jesse Ransom said:

The "shut off the fuel pump if there's no spark" logic on an '85 Volvo 240 is inside the fuel pump relay.

I'm guessing it's an RC timer circuit that gets topped up at each spark and drains far enough to cut the relay if there's no spark for X time.

Explains how you can get some weird behavior out of a fuel pump old enough to contain middle-aged capacitors.

It doesn't shut the fuel pump off.  If the ecu doesn't see a crank sensor signal, it has no reason to turn the fuel pump on.

I cannot count the number of times I have told people with no fuel pump operation to check for spark first.

wae said:

TIL: The US is going to stop producing pennies.  I understand that the recommendation was for merchants to simply round prices either up or down.  Haha, just kidding about that down part.

Evil businessman would destroy his reputation over three cents.  Dirty rotten businessman.  They are all evil, and kidnap children to sell into slavery.

Cone on, man.

RossD said:

The penny has been underwater for decades.

They've been talking about stopping production in the 1980s.  The idea was, when the Lincoln penny was 100 years old in 2009, that'd be it.

In reply to Streetwiseguy :

I know that's normal, and that's modern, and that's what's expected. Even my Megasquirt did that. That's also why the revelation was worthy of a TIL entry after a bunch of time with a car that *did* run it's fuel pump, but died irregularly, and a bunch of time reading the wiring diagram, mostly to understand why the advice on Volvo forums that a fuel pump relay could cause this sort of unevenness could be true, because replacing the fuel pump relay did fix an intermittent dying issue (to the extent that you can prove a negative).

The ECU on an L-Jetronic 2.2 '85 Volvo doesn't get involved in the fuel pump as near as I can tell. There are two inputs to the relay (not counting the turbo overpressure switch the manual shows as an optional item and which this NA car doesn't have, EDIT: which if present would be inline in the path to ground; we just ground); one's ignition switch, the other is coil.

EDIT: I'm done digging through the wiring diagrams to understand a problem that appears to be fixed. I'm guessing it's possible that the power from the ignition switch is a pass-through originating in the ECU (switch powers up ECU and also passes output back through to one relay input, making that disconnectable with the key if the ECU freezes 'on')... Weirder, it looks like '85 should be the first year that *didn't* use a pulse-counting fuel pump relay according to https://www.240turbo.com/fuelpumprelay.html, even though the move from K to LH was a few years earlier. The 2.2 diagram pointed to a couple of links in there show a 4-pin fuel pump relay which is clearly not what's present on this '85, while the Bentley manual's diagram shows in the '85-specific wiring diagram the 6-pin relay and connection to tach signal. We're well into year-to-year variations now, but I'm certain enough that my amusing-to-me discovery stands, even if it's just a holdover from the K-Jetronic and even earlier LH cars.

When Airwolf, the TV show went off the air in 1986, the helicopter was returned back to a Bell 222 and worked as a Medi-Vac copter.

In reply to Jesse Ransom :

This is coming from the wayback part of my memory, but I'm sure any of the six pin relays on the Lh cars, the pump portion is grounded by the ecu.  The LH2.0 as used in 1984 and prior had two separate relays, one main and one pump. I think the pump relay on those was still grounded by the ecu.

The kjet cars were triggered by the ignition pulse, so they still won't run the pump if you have no ignition pulse.  I think there is a white/red wire right from the ignition box on those...  

Ahh, old timey memories.  What fun.

In reply to Streetwiseguy :

Yet somehow different, I assume, from the VWs with K-jet that used ignition signal to operate a rev limiter.

Shutting off the fuel pump at 6500 or whatever always seemed iffy to me.

Peabody said:

Duke said:

wae said:

TIL: The US is going to stop producing pennies.  I understand that the recommendation was for merchants to simply round prices either up or down.  Haha, just kidding about that down part.

Who pays with cash for any transaction over a few bucks?  And how many sub-$5.00 purchases do you make?

I've been saying this for years.

That's how it's worked here, we got rid of the penny years ago. 

They do actually round down, but as Duke says, who uses cash any more? I don't use it for any transactions now if I don't have to.

Always makes me smile when you go into a store with computer problems and customers are going berserk because they don't carry cash and that's all the store is taking.

Pete. (l33t FS) said:

In reply to Streetwiseguy :

Yet somehow different, I assume, from the VWs with K-jet that used ignition signal to operate a rev limiter.

 

Shutting off the fuel pump at 6500 or whatever always seemed iffy to me.

Volvo never worried about a rev limit..."Go ahead.  Try to break that B21!"

In reply to Streetwiseguy :

And this is where old cars are so much fun... There are three remaining fragments of documentation and no more than two agree with each other on any given point...

I'm almost most bummed that I've always considered Bentley manuals about six steps above anything outside factory manuals, and this calls their definitive status into question. Blerg.

In reply to Jesse Ransom :

What are you looking for, specifically?  I have a bunch of the factory manuals from the 80s at the shop.

I also have microfiche parts books for pretty much every Volvo up to the 850's.  I sometimes wonder whether I should figure out how to scan them, and whether it would be legal to sell copies.

914Driver said:

When Airwolf, the TV show went off the air in 1986, the helicopter was returned back to a Bell 222 and worked as a Medi-Vac copter.

Just don't read up what happened to her.

Streetwiseguy said:

Pete. (l33t FS) said:

In reply to Streetwiseguy :

Yet somehow different, I assume, from the VWs with K-jet that used ignition signal to operate a rev limiter.

 

Shutting off the fuel pump at 6500 or whatever always seemed iffy to me.

Volvo never worried about a rev limit..."Go ahead.  Try to break that B21!"

If it's anything like the EA82 in my Subaru, it physically couldn't rev high enough to hurt itself.  With the throttle pinned in Neutral it wouldn't go over 7700.

That wasn't a rev limit, it simply didn't flow enough air.

Appleseed said:

Always makes me smile when you go into a store with computer problems and customers are going berserk because they don't carry cash and that's all the store is taking.

 

I was trying to buy fuel hose by the foot at Advance about a week ago.  Their catalog had gone down, but they were able to at least get what I needed.  Then the point of sale system locked up, and it didn't matter whether I had cash or card, they couldn't sell it to me.

In reply to Streetwiseguy :

It's a great question about how to keep the information available... I wonder how Volvo approaches that stuff. I have a two-volume ring binder of BMW 2002 factory manual which in the early days of eBay was sold (possibly more than dodgily) on the grounds that the info was orphaned by BMW by that time and they were just charging for printing and binding...

For my part, it's just a bunch of silliness. One of my dad's hobbies is driving a really ratty '85 240, and we chat about its maladies endlessly. In the current case a much over-analyzed but not really diagnosed tendency to die a few minutes after starting out (but not usually earlier, and never once warmed up) was apparently fixed by a new fuel pump relay I brought down a couple of visits ago, but the "diagnosis" on my part was basically down to finding info on Volvo forums indicating that weird issues like that are often (among other possibilities) the fuel pump relay. There has been on our part a shocking failure of doing things like chasing down grounds, redoing the biodegradable insulation, etc, etc...

We're even further into the weeds now, trying to rationalize/understand *why* a fuel pump relay would behave this way. I mean, cracked solder joint, coincidence, and the possibility that it just hasn't done it recently are all out there... I just really liked the relative tidiness of an aged out capacitor getting bad at timing pulses in a way that seemed like a good possibility for fuzziness and temperature dependency. But it doesn't really matter in any meaningful way. And it's still interesting that they did that in the relay even if it really did end with the K-Jetronic cars.

In reply to Jesse Ransom :

You can, 95% of the time, resolder the circuit board and solve your problem.  I've done dozens, perhaps hundreds over the years.  If you still have the relay, pop the cover off and get out your magnifying glass.

TIL that Rick Derringer sang Hang on Sloopy. 

TIL the Dodgers and the Giants aren't in New York anymore.

TIL they left waaaaay before my lifetime. I have no idea how I've been on this planet so long with this misconception.