Activate relay under timed conditions?

I have an aux output on my alarm which is (-) and continuous (i.e. stays ground as long as I hold the aux button down). I want this aux output to activate a relay but only in this manner... If the aux button is held for 3 seconds or longer then I want the relay to activate. If the aux button is held for less than 3 seconds I do NOT want the relay to activate and I want the 'timer' to reset. Anyone done this before? Any help would be much appreciated. Thanks!

I think I understand what you want: -Press the button briefly, and the output operates normally. -Press the button for more than three seconds, and the output stays on forever. -You didn't mention it, but obviously you also need some way to turn that output back off, or your battery would go dead. Look into a channel expander---I know DEI makes a couple. They make one that operates off DEI remotes only, and another that can be added to any alarm. I haven't installed it before, but I think the channel expander works something like this: push your button once; you get channel 1. push your button twice, you get channel 2....and so forth. The channel expander's outputs can also be programmed to work in different ways. Set up "channel 1" (one button press) to operate for one second. Set up "channel 2" (two button presses) to operate continously

In response to 'Chris Luongo'... No that's not what I'm looking for. My aux output is (-) for as long as I hold the button down. I want it to activate a relay but only if the button is held down for more than 3 seconds. The relay would then stay energized as long as I am holding the button. So for instance if I hold the button down for a total of 5 seconds then the relay would only be active for 2 seconds (it waited for 3, then activated, then stayed activated for the additional 2 seconds that I held the button down). The relay would then de-energized as soon as I let go of the button. If I did NOT hold the button down for at least 3 seconds then I do NOT want the relay to energized at all. In any case, every time I let go of the button I want the 'timer' to reset (i.e. start counting from zero again). I figured out a way to do it last night using two DEI 528T pulse timer relays and one standard relay, but its obviously kinda bulky. Any other ideas?

Well you could just use a cap and resistor, find a charge time of 3 seconds, but it would also include the discharge (after you let go it would stay on a little), im having a hard time thinking right now, but i think this could easliy be done with a resistor a relay and a cap maybe a diode too :-), but it may not be exactly 3 seconds, how important is it that it be 3 sec? would 2.5 sec or 3.5 sec work? just wondering what kinda tolerance it is you can live with... give me a few hours i cant think right now lol.

I don't need it to be exactly 3 seconds but close. Somewhere in the 2.75-3.25 second range would be great... however 2.5-3.5 would probably work also, but not preferred.

Answer = TR-7 Use Feature #12, delayed output.Karl

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