Troubleshooting
This article is a true description of an AECS technical support problem and how it was solved.
ADAS training problem
During our most recent ADAS training, we ran into the following problem, on a 2016 Toyota RAV4. We could not get the car to ‘take’ the calibration.
The training is a hands-on training where we perform a real calibration with real-life equipment and car. It is not just a quick slide show with a onepage handout. The 130-page manual has plenty of detail to assist you with every kind of potential problem, so we thought…
Everything was set up correctly with the utmost care and precision by the technicians. The car was level, the calibration frame was set up 100 percent correctly with built-in laser guidance. When the equipment and car are set up correctly the actual calibration is a breeze. The time is in the setting up of the gear and the car.
The calibration performed in this section of the training was the front camera, the camera that takes care of the lane guidance, the lane departure alert, and the auto headlight control. This camera needs to be recalibrated when for example a new windscreen is fitted, panel work has been performed, and when new tires are fitted on only one axle.
The problem we encountered had nothing to do with the ADAS front radar and rear blind spot monitoring radar calibration, which is part of the same ADAS 1-2 training.
Too low
During training, we focus on what changes in the car’s behaviour when the target is set up too low or too high. When incorrectly setup the car can be rather dangerous and unpredictable. As it happened to be, when calibrating the Toyota Rav4 it would only take the calibration when we lowered the target by 100 mm. No matter what we tried the single target and triple target calibration would fail with the target set up correctly.
The target should have its centre at 1350mm. If we set up the target with the top of the target at 1350mm the calibration would pass.
We double-checked everything including distances, etc. Nothing would work, greatly putting our data (the 1350mm centre target) in doubt.
This data was taken from the scanner, from the Toyota factory workshop manual and read with the scanner from the car’s ECU.
Driving the car revealed that the car was behaving as if the calibration was set too low, so we knew we had to fault-find. The camera was fixed properly on the windscreen, the windscreen was clean, there was no reflection on the target.
We decided to take a picture from a tripod with a ‘normal’ camera so we could see what perhaps the camera behind the windscreen saw.
It is clear to see that in our training workshop we had aircon and trans-flush training equipment stored in the background of the ADAS target.
In the 100 mm too low position the ADAS system would take the calibration, in the camera picture above you can clearly see that the only real difference is in the visibility of the black and shiny items in the background. We removed the aircon service equipment and covered the Transflush equipment to make sure that these items would not interfere with the calibration.
We raised the target to the correct height again and had the calibration completed in mere seconds. Job done!
As with every new technology we cover in training we encounter problems just like you will in the workshop. After the successful calibration, we test drove the car and everything worked as per normal again.
Conclusion
ADAS calibration is easy with the right equipment, however, when things don’t go well you must consider all possibilities. For us during training, we get to deal with all sorts of circumstances just like you in the workshop.
Most people love our real and hands-on practical training for that reason, also when we encounter problems we share them within our training.