Mike Rosing <eresrch@eskimo.com> wrote:
Automotive environments are known to be harsh, so electronics is protected to some extent. The assumption is that spark plug voltages can get into sensors, so most data lines are protected as are the sensor lines. If you try to fry things with double the voltage of a standard spark plug it may not work, if you use 10 times that it will, but the ESD protection will obviously be blown too. That begins to look suspicious (but I doubt anyone could _prove_ you fried it on purpose).
In automotive power systems, the bigger concern is load dump. When there's a step change in alternator load from high to low, the commutating inductances resulting from the field windings of the alternator can't react quickly enough, and you tend to get big spikes on the power lines. Perhaps this could be used to advantage---if you want to convince someone that your electronics blew up on their own, blow up the rectifier at the output of your alternator, too. -- Riad Wahby rsw@jfet.org MIT VI-2 M.Eng