I am trying to do a few things to my car to make it a bit more user friendly.
Right now the windows are tinted and there is no light anywhere near the door handles. At night I know where to grab to get out but alot of times my passengers go fumbling around looking for the handle. I am trying to add courtesey lights if you will on the handles.
I am trying to figure out how I can get it so that a low current LED would light up when I turned off the car, only problem is I don't want it on all the time when the car is off. Is there any way that I could wire them with some sort of switch so that they came on when the car was shut off but only stayed on for like 20-30 seconds??
Or is there any way I could possibly wire them to come on when the ignition goes off then shut off when I lock the doors with the keyless entry???
What kind of car do you have? Im sure you can drill a small hole for a 12v led to fit in behind the handle and tap into the dome light or underneath the knee bolster on each side. Im certain that they will only illuminate when the domelight is illuminated (ie exiting or entering the vehicle, or keyless entry )
I am planning on drilling a small hole where the handle is and inserting a LED to shine on the handle. It is an 03 Mustang and the handle is like recessed into a pocket...tined windows all black interior kind of hard to find if you don't know where it is.
Taping into the dome light would work but it kind of defeats the pourpose because if the dome light is on you don't need the LED's to light the handle.
Usually when exiting the car my passenger is the first to get out as I am grabbing anything I need to take or pulling the face off of my radio.
Hymer - no rs, factory Ford keyless and I am planning on adding a Hornet 727 to it in the near future.
About the only thing I can think of at this point would be to find a wire that is ground with ign off, then I could tap the parking light for the + and once the ign goes off I would be completing the circuit by giving it the ground when off. Once I turn my lights off to get out of the car it would not be getting any pwer and therefore it would go off.
Then that brings up another question, if I find a ground while ign. is off, then what would it be while the car is on +12v?? and if that is the case how would the LED's react to getting a +12v on both legs while the car is driving??
I guess the only other option is to have the LED always on with the lights, I just don't want it to look tacky like ground glow inside the car or anything..
Do your doors unlock when you put the car in park? If so you could use the ground pulse from the unlock wire to latch a relay and when the dome light turns on, it could shut it down....
-------------
Tire Proz Stillwater Mn
High End Restyling and Comlete Repair
If your opposed to tapping the domelights I would probably go with a pulse timer off of the ignition wire using the neg to activate it once the car is off. If you have a chance check out the 07 Saturn Aura for ideas.. Has very nice door handle lighting looks great. I actually planned to do the same to my vehicle after seeing that one. Good luck,
Mike
No the c ar is a 5spd so the doors do not unlock when put into park.
How would a pulse timer from the ignition work??