Bob_Skurka
Super Member
- Joined
- Jul 1, 2003
- Messages
- 7,615
I'm back from vacation, and after driving a little over 2400 miles, I only ran into rain for about two hours during the whole drive. Unfortunately is was through the Smokey Mtns in Tennessee and it was moderately heavy rain. But I was driving the lovely Mrs_Bob's new SUV and it has an automatic windshield wiper setting. I didn't even know about the setting or how they worked, but she had the wipers set to automatically work when it rains.
So I'm dutifully driving along and down comes the rain and the wipers start wiping before I can even reach for the control stalk. The rain starts raining harder and the wipers speed up. The rain slacks off and the wipers go into intermittant mode, until I hit the brakes and then the wipers speed up a bit. I get behind a truck and all the water the wheels are spitting out and the wipers speed up again.
Through the drive, the wipers switched on and off, sped up and slowed down, all with an amazing level of accuracy based on need. I think there is some computer logic tied to the steering and the brakes because I noticed the wipers pick up speed when turning and also when braking (but that might have just been a coincidence?).
I cannot find any sort of optical sensor aimed at the window to "see" the rain. I cannot find and sort of physical sensor to "feel" the rain.
So does anyone know how Automatic Windshield Wipers work? I thought they were great, but I just can't figure out how they sense the rain.
So I'm dutifully driving along and down comes the rain and the wipers start wiping before I can even reach for the control stalk. The rain starts raining harder and the wipers speed up. The rain slacks off and the wipers go into intermittant mode, until I hit the brakes and then the wipers speed up a bit. I get behind a truck and all the water the wheels are spitting out and the wipers speed up again.
Through the drive, the wipers switched on and off, sped up and slowed down, all with an amazing level of accuracy based on need. I think there is some computer logic tied to the steering and the brakes because I noticed the wipers pick up speed when turning and also when braking (but that might have just been a coincidence?).
I cannot find any sort of optical sensor aimed at the window to "see" the rain. I cannot find and sort of physical sensor to "feel" the rain.
So does anyone know how Automatic Windshield Wipers work? I thought they were great, but I just can't figure out how they sense the rain.
