I've seen some people say that they wonder why they don't build planes out of the same stuff flight recorders are made of. So I guess planes would be a lot safer if we potted the passengers with fire retardants after boarding.

@John_Ridley

8 жыл бұрын

It'd all work fine as long as the passengers don't have a problem with being exposed to 2000G deceleration.

@Keith_Ward

7 жыл бұрын

"exposed" > subjected ;-)

@themaconeau

7 жыл бұрын

Innocently experimented on ...

@pepper669

7 жыл бұрын

Or maybe passengers should be made out of cheap plastic material. Would also save considerable weight.

@user-pv9kg9ou1l

7 жыл бұрын

The plane might also have problems getting off the ground

Wind River and their stupid "license" stickers. They tried to insist we put them on the CPU card of a satellite I worked on. Never mind that the damn stickers would outgas like crazy and the that the payload was basically optical and couldn't tolerate any garbage like that. Plus they wanted $100K plus another $20K per developer per year for the privilege of running VxWorks. Never again.

@mikeselectricstuff

8 жыл бұрын

..so just tell them you put the stickers on... how would they ever find out ?

@Madbot_

8 жыл бұрын

they send a satellite with all the money they make on VxWorks

@cnvogel

8 жыл бұрын

...the license may allow them to show up any time, for an audit, on the satellite... ;-)

@Madbot_

8 жыл бұрын

they sent a man up there just to do it

@bborkzilla

8 жыл бұрын

We ended up sticking them to a piece of paper that went into a binder and then into a box of related documentation. We put all kinds of extra-sticky tape over the lot to make sure nobody could try to reuse them on another product and deprive Wind River of their precious revenue. Greedy bastards.

the blank connectors may be to hold the caps for the other connectors.

@AureliusR

8 жыл бұрын

That's the stupidest thing I've ever heard.

@riiwind

8 жыл бұрын

yup got it!

@RinoaL

8 жыл бұрын

***** stupidist thing youve ever heard? well then what do they do with the connector caps? you cant have those flopping around in an aircraft.

@spaculo

8 жыл бұрын

Indeed, the chains are even connected to the dummies.

@AureliusR

8 жыл бұрын

Rinoa Super-Genius As Mike said multiple times, this is clearly designed to go into many different aircraft. They are clearly blanks for other possible options.

I did software work for another brand of recorder. It used TFTP for up/download and the IP address was 10.1.1.1. It didn't support ARP or ping because the Ethernet connection was only meant to connect a computer for downloading. It would have never been connected to an actual network with other traffic. Before TFTP could be used, you had to connect to a different port and command the unit into service mode which stopped recording and enabled TFTP.

@davidmaiolo

7 жыл бұрын

bkopietz hopefully he reads your comment and can further investigate

@QuadDerrick

5 жыл бұрын

that would be something

@springford9511

4 жыл бұрын

You till need ARP unless perhaps you use hard coded MAC addresses in each end.

@NicholasAndre1

3 жыл бұрын

This sounds most plausible. Was the command to disable the recorder also sent over Ethernet?

@bkopietz

3 жыл бұрын

@@NicholasAndre1 Yes

would've been funny if you found a USB thumb drive in the middle :)

Flight recorder from a Panavia Tornado, a lot of avionics upgrades have been carried out across the global fleet for numerous reasons.

I'm sort of late here, but the glass sandy stuff at 14:40 are actually tiny ceramic balls with vacuum inside. It's a great insulator.

Fascinating insights, very much appreciate the effort taken for these videos. Concise and to the point, thank you very much.

Interesting video, thanks. Could you please zoom slightly out as it is hard to follow when you are too near the object and shake the item. Thanks.

What a wonderfully overengineered flashdrive.

@RizLazey

7 жыл бұрын

vapgames overengineered and oversized ssd*

@avypath

Жыл бұрын

"damn, i dropped my keys off the empire state building AGAIN..."

Great video Mike, I love seeing well engineered stuff like this

Amazing teardown Mike!

Very cool teardown Mike. Would it be possible to use that flash module as a thumb drive and store files on it? That's what I'd use it for.

Great video as usual, Mike!

Thanks for another great tear down

Very cool Mike! Amazing what a flash drive can do then and now.

excellent teardown as always Mike. Will be interesting to see if anyone can help with looking at any stored data.

If you install Wireshark on your laptop you can watch the network traffic with the protocol analyzer. If it has an IP address it should show up in the traffic. Wind River makes RTOS systems (realtime OS) which may be linux based. So there is the possibility of some sort of information being output on a pin somewhere.

@benbird3364

8 жыл бұрын

Wind river isn't linux based, it's its own thing.

@liamharrison3

8 жыл бұрын

+someusguysmusic probably vxworks which isn't Linux. just like your netgear router and the Mars rovers!

@cnvogel

8 жыл бұрын

Wireshark is a great tool, I second this recommendation (some people like NetworkMonitor under Windows, which is inferior for decoding traffic support.microsoft.com/en-us/kb/933741). As a typical computer starts broadcasting a lot of things when an Ethernet connection comes up, I'd try to have a small desktop-switch in between your computer (running wireshark) and the flight-recorder. Turn on the switch, let all the applications (apple MDNS, windows networking, DHCP requests, ...) settle down for a minute, then start capturing with wireshark, then turn on the flight-recorder. That way, you don't record too much crap in your packet captures. If you find anything interesting, put the .cap-file up somewhere :-). Just watch for any packets the flight recorder might emit when powering up, but it may be anything, not just IP. On the other hand, the vendor claims (at least for their *newer* models) that it uses standard networking protocols, and has an integrated webserver... www.curtisswrightds.com/products/electronic-systems/crash-protected-recorders/fortressimagine.html#tabbed-table2 ...but those are the ones that have Gigabit Ethernet, and still need 45 seconds to download. So those probably have GByte of storage.

@stonent

7 жыл бұрын

+Ben Bird They do have a Linux distribution. www.windriver.com/products/linux/

@GertvandenBerg

7 жыл бұрын

+Christian Vogel just filtering out your own MAC address also helps (less stuff to filter from can be useful though)

Gotta love the quality of military spec gear.

As a plane, this video intrigues and terrifies me at the same time. Hopefully the only reason my black boxes would be removed is because they're expired... And not because... Y'know....

@AureliusR

Жыл бұрын

as a plane?!

manufacturer : sensitive electronics. mike : where's me angle grinder ....

i have checked the NSN, it is used in some newer (refurbished) DC-10 planes, most notably the tanker version.

excellent, as always

I know the company I work for does have boards with wind river stickers on them. those boards are a vxworks OS also running on a Motorola power PC type processor and boot and talk via serial and Ethernet. very similar setup to this.

Awesome, I need to get myself a flight recorder some day. I wonder what the manufacturing process is like for that flex-rigid construction, I've never seen anything like that before. That can will also make one hell of a cool pen/screwdriver holder. I hope some progress can be made on the ethernet connection front.

The blank connector you mention at the start is and earthing connector

Teledyne is known for making those tiny little metal can relays. Fran Blanche was trying to build an Apollo AGC DSKY replica, and learned that Teledyne made the tiny latching relays used to drive each segment of the EL displays of the unit. Sadly, the things are expensive/scarce.

these videos are great!

I hope the powdery stuff wasn't asbestos…

@chrisvighagen

8 жыл бұрын

looked more like bentonite clay. Asbestos is a fibrous mineral material. And while it is really fire resistant, it would not be used today as it is incredibly dangerous to handle. Besides there are better fire resistant materials today. Like Areo gels.

@kg4boj

8 жыл бұрын

It's called "castable refactory cement" It's the same stuff they use in fire resistant safes, IIRC it's mostly plaster of paris with a little portland cement.

Those glass beads could well be hollow to give some thermal insulation. I've come across such beads used as filler in potting compounds.

would be so cool to use that can (before it was cut open) as like usb external storage if you could bodge a interface for it toegether. coolest memory stick ever xd

All of a sudden a task force arrives at your home saying they started getting pings from a flight recorder!

Would be interesting to see if you could pull any data of those chips, they could have some baseline encryption on them though. Nice tear down.

I wonder if the blank connectors are there to keep all versions of the device at the same weight and/or shape.

I am curious. Perhaps the fire proofing in the tube was asbestos? For your health's sake, I hope not.

@foreignautomobiles

8 жыл бұрын

I was thinking the same thing, it looks like asbestos. Hopefully he was wearing a decent mask at least. Even i wear a half face respirator while working with compressed asbestos gaskets.

@WobblycogsUk

8 жыл бұрын

Unlikely, the item was built in the UK which banned the use of blue and brown asbestos in 1985 and white asbestos in 1992 long before this was built. More likely it was some sort of clay.

@foreignautomobiles

8 жыл бұрын

Ok, thats good. I still find the occasional asbestos gasket/insulation in cars. Its probably some sort of bentonite clay or something.

@trcostan

8 жыл бұрын

I looked like a form of rock wool to me. And that sand was prob very dry to act as a desiccant for the memory.

@tbbw

7 жыл бұрын

i think it was just some form of crystal. What ther doing in that memory module is to protect it against heat so they have layers of heat isolators and i think those balls are the last line of isolators and i'm pritty sure they are there to isolate the chips from heat better then air would.

you secure the Caps on the Blank Sockets do they Don't bounce around in flight..

I'd resolder the DOC(Disk-on-chip), and reconnect the core unit back together. I've used DOC units to boot embedded devices before and that might explain the reason for the lack of activity on the ethernet port. You may be getting physical link but since the FDR's not booting, you may not get any response from it. Reassemble it completely, and then boot it and see if you get any activity, like ARPs or any kind of connection attempts originating from the FDR.

are the "glass beads" maybe silica gel?

@NonEuclideanTacoCannon

2 жыл бұрын

Super late here, but the glass beads are vacuum spheres, and they're ceramic. Great insulator.

I have a CVR from an RAF Nimrod. Works of 28V DC and only draws about half an amp. There's a single RS232 interface on the front which I presume is for extracting the audio but I've been unsuccessful to get any kind of signals on the connector. The unit appears to be working as there is activity on all the chips as seen on an oscilloscope but no waveforms on the data port...

that flight recorder was made about an hour away from my house! good ol' Dorset :P

Very interesting, as always.

maybe the glass/sand is supposed to prevent destruction of the components from a g-shock?

@thaalsmythic8731

8 жыл бұрын

desiccant? Or phase change thermal energy absorber? Could try heating and/or wetting it.

@frtard

8 жыл бұрын

Maybe they might be used similar to this: www.google.ch/patents/US6456240 "The action of this tubular protection member 704 is to convey or conduct higher frequency shock wave components around the enclosed electronic circuit elements rather than allow shock wave interaction with the electronic circuit elements..." "Preferably any empty or void spaces within the tubular protection member 704, spaces such as are indicated at 728 and 730 in FIG. 7, are filled with a potting or casting material to add both wiring support and strength/rigidity to the overall FIG. 7 assembly." "...said tubular enclosure member is comprised of reinforcing fiberglass and includes a void space-filling epoxy and glass bead material."

@frtard

8 жыл бұрын

Damn KZread comments not handling new lines anymore? WTF

@madinatore

8 жыл бұрын

yay I guessed right! where is the teddy?

Thanks! Very interesting teardown. :)

Small glass spheres are used in high visibility paint

could the clicker on power up be used for location underwater?

Sure beats that drain pipe for a pen holder.

Seagate used to use flex-core PCBs like that in some of their hard disks.

could be those smaller capacity chips are for buffering?

There was at least one other sale of this model by eBay seller 'rays-tek' claiming it was scrap from an RAF Tornado. Interestingly the listing was in Staffordshire which up until about 10 years ago had an RAF station involved in maintenance. That eBay user has some more aviation goodies we might enjoy watching you tear down :-)

@1001ewaste

8 жыл бұрын

Nice find, that seller seems to have plenty of Tonka toy goodies especially from the now scrapped F.3.

You should be able to use wireshark and a network hub (it must be a hub and not a switch) to maintain link and an active capture. After you've started the capture, power up the flight recorder. You might see it try and DHCP out and attempt to get an address, or it may broadcast some packets from its static address. - Might work anyway without a hub and a crossover cable just like you've got there, I have been successful that way as well.

My guess is the glass like beads are some form of desiccant incase it gets wet. I also bet the memory inside is redundant so each module is just a clone of each other. Then if one gets damaged the others are still able to be removed and read back.

Hi! Those PCBs looks like they have some nice coating on them. What would be best to use for coating on a PCB used in a humid environment? I'm thinking of waterproofing the headlight modules in my car.

i wonder if the memory module is required for boot or this device is using a token ring based type networking

a packet sniffer like wireshark may find its IP, if it sends any packets out on its own

patent US6706966 seems to be a never recorder as it has 1.5GB of internal storage.. but it also has ethernet.. and " The default URL of the homepage is 192.168.0.2 which is pre-set at the factory but which can be changed as shown in FIG. 14" but that can be changed easily so i suppose they have changed it... also take a look at www.curtisswrightds.com/products/electronic-systems/crash-protected-recorders/ their models look very similear to yours

if it uses a wind river software, it might have unix in there... did you try SSHing?

I can only image one day getting the responsibly of fixing a black box from a plane crash where several families of deceased loved ones are waiting for.

I assume that critical data might be stored on the SLC DOMs and non-critical data might get stored on the flash media.

Aren't those parking connectors for the caps to avoid any kind of rattle inside????

Fire-proof safes are filled with ground or finely powdered glass as it doesn’t conduct heat and dissipates it so it doesn’t reach the contents of the safe. I’d imagine this stuff is quite hazardous if ingested or inhaled.

I think that M-Systems DiskOnChip is a complete solid state disk. It looks like an MD2202-D64 which 64MB of storage.

If you use Wireshark, you can capture all the traffic from the device. It may not talk IP, but nevertheless Wireshark can capture the raw ethernet frames, and more.

hey, whats the type of the flash controller?

Would be interesting to find out where the military plane flew, based on data in the flight recorder.

would use a software called firefly to download the fdr and cvr data over an ethernet connection. Some planes have more than one recorder, bother recorders will be networked so they share data

I would suggest using NMAP to scan the Ethernet port as that will find any IP addresses in use as well as the ports that the IP address uses. You will need Linux for it, not sure if NMAP is available for Windows. If you have not already use Wireshark. That will allow you to analyze any packets it releases.

@Kevin-rc5ec

8 жыл бұрын

Yeah, I use it on my windows machine. nmap.org/book/inst-windows.html I'd really love to see what kind of information it has in it!

@superdau

8 жыл бұрын

When arp scans don't give you anything (he did that), there's not much point in searching for IP addresses. Most likely that thing doesn't even run IP.

@Jaredo66

7 жыл бұрын

Yep most likely not IP based. I would think there would be a sequence of "commands" you would have to send it to wake it up. Like a secret door knock code, once done then it'll talk to you. Even then it's going to be some specialized protocol.

@ivanatora

7 жыл бұрын

Why it would not run IP? TCP/IP is widely used in modern vehicles. I have a friend writing software for Mercedes dashboards and he says ethernet is everywhere around the car. I saw a video on the eevblog where some Audi guy talked about their lunar rover (competing for the google xprize). He also confirmed various ethernet connected modules in the rover.

@GertvandenBerg

7 жыл бұрын

+ivanatora sometimes raw ethernet frames might be simpler? No need for an IP stack and you can still easily use a laptop to talk to it... (running a sniff on the port in Wireshark when it is connected might give an idea of what it tries to talk?)

Wouldn't the 'glass beads' be a desiccant? Like those "Don't Eat" packs you get with electronics..

Made in Dorset Christchurch just down the road from me

Perhaps, you could give your computer a static address, open your subnet to 255.0.0.0, and use Angry IP Scanner to scan the network for any response. I would image IMCP might be disabled, but you could also do a port scan with nmap. The question is what network class do you choose? Maybe Class C?

Didn't one of the 2Mbit ICs and it's opposite look a little burnt?

Try putting some of the spherical glass material under a microscope. Might be glass bubbles. Pretty neat tech.

Probably was manufactured to be installed on flight simulator ( it's a guess because the marking "level D").

Does it emit any Ethernet packets at all on boot up? If So could pastebin a wireshark log? Is there a Mac address encoded? What happens if you send a wake on lan packet. or ping with a Static ARP set?

Could you not download any voice audio from them?

What are the advantages of the flex rigid construction over board to board ? I am guessing its more expensive.

@AureliusR

Жыл бұрын

More reliable. Avoids human error (Fred forgot to plug in connector J5 and so we lost all the engine data)

Does it respond to pings from something like 'angry ip scanner'?

i would imagine it would use a manually configured IP address, I don't think it would be in the 24 Subnet range, The OS might be also on the solid state drive that was not connected and it sent the data to a satellite, using the onboard memory to store the data as a cache, Try it with the drive plugged in, If that will not work some new planes use Ethernet to communicate with the recorder so if you get no data out from it, it could be only data in

Very interesting, amazed the memory is so small.

@rkan2

8 жыл бұрын

384MB? Plenty for a couple data/xml -streams and even audio.

@gglovato

8 жыл бұрын

very conservative industry, they're probably 3+ generations behind "state of the art" and using XOR flash or EEPROM for those 2MB parts, the other NAND diskonchip thingies use very big cells which means larger retention and more P/E cycles, probably overprovisioned to hell. also remember that flight data is not very space-intensive even with a lot of sensors at high capture rate

@video2k007

8 жыл бұрын

could it also be that they need more robust flash (= bigger cells) to be more resilient against cosmic rays?

@AureliusR

8 жыл бұрын

Wrong. The generational innovation takes forever in avionics. This is almost certainly the state of the art (as far as actual implemented hardware -- I'm sure a lab somewhere has some giant 50TB flash chips on it or something equally mental).

@greegor4719

8 жыл бұрын

Best comment! High density memory might indeed be more vulnerable to cosmic rays! Next best comment mentioned data duplication/redundancy. What seems like old low-tech might actually be state of the art when you consider survivability. On the other hand, vibrating flex cable and connectors seem like obvious points of failure. Thanks Mike!

one set of chips for voice, one for data?

13:00 would that fiber goop not be asbestos based?

@cnerde

8 жыл бұрын

Sold in 2007, so no.

Of course they are not going for density, I bet they are 4x redundancy, all chips with different operating temperatures. pretty neat actually !

the memory modules look just like normal usb sticks , same memory and controller is used , likely mor industrial but looks the same , intresting video !!

The smaller bits of memory are probably just faster caching RAM, right?

I love all the work they put into ensuring it survives. Really wish they build a more robust method for aircraft to send out a distress signal. In todays age of satellite communication you would think they could build equipment that would disengage from the aircraft and send a signal to inform the airline of the loss.

@RobertSzasz

8 жыл бұрын

+MichaelKingsfordGray doing a data burst of a couple hundred megs over a second or two from a crashing plane is beyond current technology. There are low bandwidth links being brought online that will improve tracking, and perhaps high bandwidth links could be triggered by an mayday or transponder code. High bandwidth links require a stable platform or ground/space relays actively tracking the plane. The costs of a new constellation of satellites able to acquire and track any commercial plane in the sky within a few seconds of catastrophic failure boggles the mind.

@RobertSzasz

8 жыл бұрын

MichaelKingsfordGray ACARS and newer methods of sending telemetry are still very, very low bandwidth and not robust enough to continue a link when there are catastrophic failures. They will certainly help for the still all too common situational awareness failure/controlled flight into terrain in remote areas , but plane breaks up over ocean scenarios they aren't likely to add a lot. A way to have redundant, high bandwidth transmission on critical system failure would help, but the requirements on the receiving end are immense.

@ethanpoole3443

7 жыл бұрын

+MichaelKingsfordGray You run into the practical issue of how does a computer determine ahead of time that the plane is about to crash until the crash has actually occurred -- even pilots frequently fail to call "Mayday!" -- as one does not want accidental activations. Once the crash has happened it is subject to extreme forces that will pretty much ensure that you are likely to be left with a highly inefficient antenna (if you are lucky) at the very moment all power is lost, limiting one to low power and relatively short range transmissions (as are already transmitted by data recorders after an impact event). At the same time, you really want your data recorder to stay with the downed plane so that you can actually find the data recorder and plane together as a plane in the process of crashing, but not yet crashed, may travel many miles before impacting Earth.

@RobertSzasz

7 жыл бұрын

+MichaelKingsfordGray What information do you think should be sent over an always on telemetry link. Right now there is a push for ACARS or the satellite based equivalent to be on all commercial flights. Unfortunately these systems can only send a fraction the info a flight data recorder would save.

Could the ethernet be AFDX?

Anything that looks like a MAC address anywhere?

why did you remove some of the stickers containing firmware version/etc that were on some of the chips?

@AureliusR

Жыл бұрын

Probably to see either the chip numbers or to see if they were quartz-windowed or not.

You might be able to use zmap to get it to respond to something. But maybe it is not even talking IP but something more proprietary? Or maybe you broke it and the transceiver is just not getting its dhcp discover to you...

I'm guessing the glass beads are for heat insulation.

@patw52pb1

8 жыл бұрын

And cushioning support for impact resistance, similar to sand. The glass spheres are also lightweight, non-conductive, non-absorptive, heat/fire/flame resistant, chemical/solvent resistant and reflective.

I think the glass beads distribute stress.

If a militatry flight data recorder can have wire corrections, why not my board, which only runs a cooling fan. I tried to reason with my customer, but he will not agree.

I'm surprised that they don't have a layer of water around the memory to use the tremendous ability of water to absorb heat while keeping the temp below 100C.

@ddegn

6 жыл бұрын

I know I'm a year late but water will only keep things below 100C if there's a way for water vapor to escape. They wouldn't be able to seal off the electronics as well if they needed to leave a path for the water vapor to escape.

galssy dust looks like aerogel. It has great thermal performance. You could verify it by checking how well it conducts heat. There are some cool videos where they heat it with propane torch.

@halofan00

6 жыл бұрын

It's not Aerogel (only goes to 600C). It is microporous insulation which sustains temperatures of 1000C.

Very cool! I didnt know they did solid state ones. Must be out of a relatively new airplane then, I wonder how it got on ebay so quickly because they usually last as long as the plane...

@RobertSzasz

8 жыл бұрын

Given the huge dent? I'm guessing someone dropped it.

@macro820

8 жыл бұрын

.

@PaulKlinger

8 жыл бұрын

+Preproto that would be really fun to look for at a crash site :D I can barely find micro SD cards on my table.

@macro820

8 жыл бұрын

.

@tHaH4x0r

8 жыл бұрын

@Preproto Well it is only 300mb, but it does not need to be larger, it only needs to be robust. And most airliners nowadays still fly with the old tape based recorders! The aerospace industry is kind of stiff in ways like that, if it works and is robust they wont upgrade it quickly.

A google search of the NSN (NATO Stock Number) seems to indicate an NIIN assignment date of March 17, 2010.

glass balls most likely - syntactic foam :) very high tech.

nmap.org/download.html Found a Windows version of it, have not tested it so I don't know if it is any good. However you can always run Linux in a VM.

smaller? not by much, i think there is just some things that we will never shrink. nice vid.

Someone below mentioned hollow glass beads but here is a link to a supplier and details. www.aircraftspruce.com/catalog/cmpages/bubbles.php They are light and may provide insulation. Mentions not inhaling as a good idea.

Only 10 years old but looks 20-30 years old... But a friend of mine did say automotive engineering is much more interesting, because you can actually try new things. In aerospace engineering reinventing something means huge amounts of testing, verification, approvals etc.