Warning switch for lights

Post by **Orkney** » Fri Feb 22, 2008 4:28 pm

It should say as a stolen sound clip from Dad's Army - spoken by the annoying warden - "Oi Turn those B****y Lights out"
Probably doable too - think about it a birthday card can sing you a song - you just need to find a way of flashing the memory of one of those things..
Over to Alex holden territory methinks !

Post by **bigginger** » Fri Feb 22, 2008 4:37 pm

Don't suppose you can suggest the easiest place to find and break into the courtesy light wire to link to the buzzer and install the diode

I think the wire comes down one of the windscreen supports but I'm not sure which side.

Drivers (RH, off) side. A black wire, IIRC, running down/up the pillar then under/behind the 'box liner
a

Post by **alex_holden** » Fri Feb 22, 2008 4:45 pm

Orkney wrote:Probably doable too - think about it a birthday card can sing you a song - you just need to find a way of flashing the memory of one of those things..

This ought to do it: http://www.mutr.co.uk/catalog/product_i ... cts_id=779

I would power it from its own battery pack and use another small relay to isolate it from the vehicle power (you get lots of nasty surges in a car that will easily fry unprotected electronics).

Post by **overider** » Fri Feb 22, 2008 5:06 pm

How do you connect one into a convertible?

Post by **Axolotl** » Fri Feb 22, 2008 5:09 pm

Brilliant!

If technology goes on improving at this rate, they'll soon be able to put a man on the moon

Post by **alex_holden** » Fri Feb 22, 2008 5:33 pm

overider wrote:How do you connect one into a convertible?

Do convertibles have a switch in the A post? If not you could probably fit one quite easily.

Post by **Axolotl** » Fri Feb 22, 2008 5:40 pm

Do convertibles have a switch in the A post?

Isn't that one of the ways you tell a real one from a conversion? The real ones have a courtesy light in the A post, and the conversions don't?

Post by **overider** » Sat Feb 23, 2008 10:48 am

Axolotl wrote:
Do convertibles have a switch in the A post?
Isn't that one of the ways you tell a real one from a conversion? The real ones have a courtesy light in the A post, and the conversions don't?

Yes that correct Axolotl, dont realy want to make it look like a chop top.

I was only throwing the cat among the pigeons,

Post by **Peetee** » Sat Feb 23, 2008 12:30 pm

It's the other way round. The real convertibles don't have a switch as there was never an interior light. The choptops have one because they did have a light (before the roof was removed).

I was going to fit a switch but I'm not familiar with the panels between the a-post behind the wing and the flitch panel so I can't work out how to get the wiring through and keep it weather proof etc.

Post by **alex_holden** » Sat Feb 23, 2008 1:36 pm

Peetee wrote:I was going to fit a switch but I'm not familiar with the panels between the a-post behind the wing and the flitch panel so I can't work out how to get the wiring through and keep it weather proof etc.

The bit it screws into on the non-convertibles is a double skin that's open at the top. You just take the glovebox liner out and poke the wire down from above.

Post by **overider** » Sat Feb 23, 2008 4:13 pm

Peetee wrote:It's the other way round. The real convertibles don't have a switch as there was never an interior light. The choptops have one because they did have a light (before the roof was removed).

I was going to fit a switch but I'm not familiar with the panels between the a-post behind the wing and the flitch panel so I can't work out how to get the wiring through and keep it weather proof etc.

Sorry Peetee you are right I miss read. The true convertible does not have the interior light. That was the idea of asking how you fit the buzzer in a convertible.

.

Post by **Axolotl** » Thu Feb 28, 2008 4:01 pm

It's the other way round.

Mea culpa. I don't know where my brain was when I wrote that. Obviously, the car with no light would be the car with no switch

.

However, returning to the original topic, Maurice now has a "lights on" warning buzzer

.

Based on Alex's circuit, with two slight mods.

First, I took the power for the buzzer from the panel light circuit instead of the side lights.

That means that everything else works the same, because the panel lights are only live when side or headlights are on but if I want to leave the sidelights on, when parked on a dark night, for instance, I can turn the panel lights off to save power, and the buzzer won't sound when I get out.

Second, as I mentioned above somewhere, I hooked into the wire to the drivers door switch only (they're brown wires on my car), not the one from the courtesy light. That way, the buzzer only sounds if the driver's door opens, so I can let passengers out or use the manual light switch in peace.

For what it is worth, here's the made-up harness, prior to installation.

The black wire with the bullet connectors goes into the courtesy light earthing circuit to the driver's door switch. The two diodes are the suspicious bulges in the black wire, hidden by heatshrink. I taped the supply wires to the buzzer to give them a bit of support, as they are extremely thin. I might tape over the buzzer itself, because it is a bit loud at the moment.

The black and red wires on the relay piggyback onto the ignition supply on an existing relay that operates a dummy alarm LED when the ignition is off, and the green wire goes to the panel lights via a "chocolate block" that's used to power my add-on instrument lights from the panel light circuit.

All the wiring is accessible behind my instrument cluster, which is on a bolt-in panel across the driver's side glovebox.

Everest is climbed!

I didn't pursue the voice message option, because all the voice recorders I can find are switched mechanically, not electrically, so it wasn't possible to build them into the circuit in place of the buzzer. (At least with my level of knowledge of electronics.)