Alarm Interior Light Activation

Maybe want to use a capacitor to extend the time..probably need a big one depending on the amount of time you want the light to stay on....the following might help:

https://www.the12volt.com/installbay/display_topic_threads.asp?ForumID=3&TopicID=2319

but, i bet this can be done with a relay and a door pin also..but i dont know if you need light after the door is closed or what... and that might be a problem if you were to disarm your car and not go back to it for a couple of hours...the light would still be on, unless it had some kind of timing circuit on there...

SO....your best bet would be a capacitor or two if your alarm system can't make the light stay on any longer.

Anybody else agree? thanx.

Yup , I'll have to agree on this one ( any other takers ?? ). You can have the door trigger as the activation wire so that the relay stays N/O until the doors close and then the relay will shut off the power going to it. The capacitor will slowly drain and the light will dim out as the capacitor slowly drains. The cap will re-energize when the doors are open again and the cycle will continue.

OK..i was reading some info on the net and got these measurements for a capacitor..

An 35WVDC electrolytic capacitor that you can get at your local radio shack:

47MFD will give you an extra 12 sec. (approx)

You can play with the MFD ratings but the lower the number, the smaller the charge.

I am not that good with knowledge about capacitors so I am only posting what I saw...If any of these are wrong or it sounds like I have no idea what I'm talking about, please let me know..thanx!

There is a positive and a negative terminal on an electrolytic (one of which will be marked). You need to make sure you get the polarity right when you install the capacitor. You'll want to wire the neg. lead to the neg wire of the dome lamp and the positive lead to the positive wire of the dome lamp..(NOW .. THIS IS WITHOUT A RELAY..I DONT THINK YOU NEED ONE IF YA DONT MIND THE LIGHT STAYING ON FOR THE EXTRA TIME DURING ANY DOOR OPENING/ALARM DISENGAGING..)

BUT PLEASE...dont install it until someone here will verify that this is they way you should do it...i dont want you to mess up your electrical system because I 'think i know what im doing'...hehe thanx.

I think you need a resistor to regulate the dischagre rate of the cap - and a diode to prevent the charge from going the wrong way- - BUT I COULD BE WORNG.

JT