# Looking past the obvious???



## flankdrive04 (Jun 9, 2008)

Hi all, my first post here!!

Has anyone taken the time to check out possible PM's inside ECU, CCU, BCU units in automobiles??

I have a 1999 Range Rover, and that bad boy has "14" different 'modules' in it....

Just an idea


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## ChucknC (Jun 9, 2008)

There could be some gold plate and monolithic capacitors that might have some Ag, Pd, or Pt in the soldier. Wouldn't hurt to check.


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## donald236 (Jun 9, 2008)

for those of us that are car dummies , what in the world is a ECU , CCU , AND BCU units


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## lamp (Jun 9, 2008)

Those would be , electronic control unit , cruise control unit , and either the body control or brake control , they are more comonly called modules and are called by letters such as PCM ,which would be your powertrain control module , they are small computers which control a spec. function .Newer vehicles can have as many as 26 of these units . I'm sure they contain some sort of PM's , but not sure which units contain which metals or how much.


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## lamp (Jun 9, 2008)

In your older vehicles , early to late 80's had a single unit with a removeable PROM , programable read only memory , it pluged into the computer like memory stick and has gold plated fingers .


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## Oz (Jun 10, 2008)

Lamp, 

Do you have a pic of the plated eprom. My memory of the 80's car computers were sealed units.


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## flankdrive04 (Jun 10, 2008)

Some modules were classed as 'sealed', however this was mainly to do with the info or state of tune that the E-Proms were loaded with. Sealed, as in cannot re-program.

I am yet to see a Ford or Gm module that you can't get into.

Lamb is correct, the older units (80's and 90's) had gold pins on the E-Proms, but as the number of modules increases, we are seeing more and more without gold pins, however there are still some gold contacts on the PCB's

Cheers!


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## lamp (Jun 10, 2008)

The silver copuuter box has a spot with two screws holding a cover on , remove the screws and you will see the PROM or Eprom held in place by clips on each end .


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## flankdrive04 (Jun 10, 2008)

Here are some pics of your garden variety E.C.U (module) I have not pulled this completely apart as it is the spare from my wifes car!

This is an example of a unit with no gold pins,but you can see the e-proms, and maybe there is some PGM in the surface resistors?

Cheers!


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## flankdrive04 (Jun 10, 2008)

.....sorry!

the pics above are in reverse order, anyway, you get the idea.


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## Oz (Jun 10, 2008)

No problem on the order, thanks for the pics. All looks familiar but I just never had the nerve to try taking one apart that was still needed. 

Oz


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## flankdrive04 (Jun 10, 2008)

The 40 pin prom on the left of the picture is the main chip in the ECU. On bosch units (common to heaps of euro cars, and some GM stuff) it is a ceramic chip and has a gold plated centre and some gold wires etc inside.

Will post a pic later.


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