reverse polarity without relay

Ah, now we know, a 3 Series E36! Or an early 90s 5 Series! Nah, glovebox out, got to be 3 Series but then the US spec had a factory alarm with WHITE/ black lock and blue/red unlock, and these were NEG!

howie ll wrote: Ah, now we know, a 3 Series E36! Or an early 90s 5 Series! Nah, glovebox out, got to be 3 Series but then the US spec had a factory alarm with WHITE/ black lock and blue/red unlock, and these were NEG!

Wow you're good, yea it's an E36. And I don't know where you got that info, but they're positive in my '97, and different colours. Maybe they were like that in pre-1996 cars, they changed alot electrically in that year.

There was an electrical change in 96, but European cars didn't have that factory alarm so we had pos. going from pins 4 and 17 on the left hand quadplug on the processor behind the glove box, early E36s used a yellow plug, later ones a violet plug. Colours were originally not present you just carefully placed a bare end of your lock trigger wire in the vacant hole for pin for, later on (violet plug) I believe it was WHITE/ red with yellow dots. Unlock was blue/red with yellow dots. Now here's where I might be wrong but I THINK on US cars with the factory alarm you had NEG lock, WHITE/ black and NEG unlock, blue/red at the factory alarm module, unless I'm confusing it with the E46 which had those colours and neg. locks. I might stand corrected, I've never done a US spec vehicle! But here's where you get smart. Use a timed aux output from your unit, set 20secs and attach it to the neg side of your lock wire before the converter. Then run a 1N4004 diode from the lock wire on the output side of the converter to the unlock wire on the output side, band towards the unlock wire. This will give you deadlock and window/roof close on arming and ordinary locking on ignition.

howie ll wrote: There was an electrical change in 96, but European cars didn't have that factory alarm so we had pos. going from pins 4 and 17 on the left hand quadplug on the processor behind the glove box, early E36s used a yellow plug, later ones a violet plug. Colours were originally not present you just carefully placed a bare end of your lock trigger wire in the vacant hole for pin for, later on (violet plug) I believe it was WHITE/ red with yellow dots. Unlock was blue/red with yellow dots. Now here's where I might be wrong but I THINK on US cars with the factory alarm you had NEG lock, WHITE/ black and NEG unlock, blue/red at the factory alarm module, unless I'm confusing it with the E46 which had those colours and neg. locks. I might stand corrected, I've never done a US spec vehicle! But here's where you get smart. Use a timed aux output from your unit, set 20secs and attach it to the neg side of your lock wire before the converter. Then run a 1N4004 diode from the lock wire on the output side of the converter to the unlock wire on the output side, band towards the unlock wire. This will give you deadlock and window/roof close on arming and ordinary locking on ignition.

You're talking about the "double lock" feature right? Where you can't mechanically unlock it without the key. I've seem this done with 2 diodes though, one to trigger the unlock wire when locking and the other to protect the alarm module (or in this case converter) from the lock pulse. Also, I can't seem to find which pin is the aux output, here's the install manual that I used http://www.staub.ca/pdf/manuals/Firstech/CM4200DX%20Install%20Guide%20Long%20Version%20V19.pdf

Aux 1, set it timed for 20 secs. If you run through the lock wire polarity converter, you only need the one diode, the converters protect the alarm. It needs about 3 secs to deadlock, the rest of the time to raise all 4 windows and close the roof if you have one.

So the converter won't be damaged in any way correct? And again, I couldn't find the aux output pin in any of the diagrams I've seen. Is it named something else?

The link you gave, connector 3 pin 7, WHITE/ black.

Thanks, I was thinking it might be that but I didn't find a 2nd accessory output pin so I thought I was looking for the wrong thing.