electric windows issue

Hi,

    I've been having some problems with my electric windows motors. They are 2 aftermarket motors, not the ones that came originally with my car. I have 2 motors (it's a 2-door car). The driver-side motor works fine, the window goes up and down quite smoothly. However, the passenger side motor is very slow to go up, and most of the time it refuses to go up it is has been slided downmost, and it would need some manual help by hand, to have the power to push it back up.

    I've recently taken the door cards, and tried testing a bit with it. If I make a direct wire from battery to the motor, the motor works brilliantly. So I thought the issue was that the wires that connect the passenger motor with the driver are too thin. (The driver side can control both driver side and passenger side). Also, it is much slower to go up when controlling it from the driver side, than from the passenger side. I tried using a thicker wire (about 3x the original size), and it still went up very slowly, just slightly better. Any ideas what I can do to fix the problem? Any help would be greatly appreciated!

Thanks!

Most of the window setups I've seen have a counterbalance spring which works to assist the window rolling up...basically it exerts a constant upward pressure on the window, rolling the window down compresses it and it relaxes as the window is rolled up.

Check to see if that spring might be screwed up on the passenger side. I've seen them break after so many years.

Also check the rubber guides and the regulator - try putting grease in them(clear silicone grease in the rubber guides, just about any grease in the metal regulator).

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C Renner's Auto Electronix
My service is cheap, quick, and good - pick any two

I've tried already putting silicon grease, to no avail. As for the spring, both sides do not have any spring. The thing is that if I connect the passenger-side motor directly with the battery, it works pretty well, so I think it is an electrical issue and not to do with the window itself, what do you think?

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I would say your next step is to get a DMM and measure resistance on the wires and switches - your resistance on all wires and switches should be less than 50 milliohms.

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C Renner's Auto Electronix
My service is cheap, quick, and good - pick any two

Have you tried changing your switches? If you can swap the driver's window switch with the passenger switch it will tell you a lot. Since direct to the battery works fine, the problem can't be the motor, regulator, or window mechanism. The problem sounds like the motor isn't getting enough amps. If changing switches makes the driver's window slow you probably have a bad switch. If the problem still stays with the passenger window then suspect the wiring.

Where did you tie in the window kit main power? It should not be to an ignition or accessory circuit as that will not have enough for the windows and everything else the Car manufacturer ran off of it. It should be off of a relay that is powered up by an ign. circuit, but switches a fused, direct feed from the battery. If you wired it differently, try moving the supply voltage for the window kit directly to the battery (fused, of course) to see if the performance changes. I doubt the window kit manufacturer used less than the correct gauge wire for the kit, but you might check where the wires go from the door jamb into the door panel. If they're getting kind of worn you may have enough to make a connection, but not a good one. If you suspect the wires are wearing thin, replace them. And check both doors and jambs. The power to the passenger unit probably comes from the master switch in the driver's door.

First of all, this is an aftermarket kit, and not an original one. I had fitted it myself some 2 years ago. As regard to the ignition, yes they are directly connected to the ignition. I'll try wiring it to a relay instead. I had changed it some few months ago to the ignition, because it was wired permanently to the battery, and it had leds in the switches which I suspected were a constant drain to the battery. However, when I changed from battery to ignition, the change wasn't very much visible, but I'll still give it a try. As for the switches, I don't think I'll be able to find a replacement, since they are made to fit with the kit (same design, etc...). Would it be possible to wire some form of relays, that the switches operate the relay and the relay operates directly the window motor? The problem is that the motor uses the same wire, but different polarity for rolling up or down. Is it possible with some form of diodes or something like that?





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I'm not sure if this works, but I tried to do a simple diagram with how to wire them directly to the battery (with the switched wire instead of operating the motor directly, it operates the relays).

Currently, the passenger-side motor has 2 wire inputs, lets call them wire A and B. When the polarity is A+ve, B -ve, it goes up, and A-ve and B+ve, it goes down. The diagrams hows how I think it might be connected. It requires 2 other relays for wire B, where wire A is replaced with wire B, and the outputs C and D are reversed.



Do you think this might be possible? Because this way I could work it directly to the battery, and keep the existing switches!

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That illustration is real nice. It will work good for rest at ground power windows.

One word of caution though. Not all power window switches rest at ground. Some rest at positive. Before you wire anything up use a DVM (you probably could get away with a test light on aftermarket power windows) to determine the polarity of the switch outputs.

God post and I know this is chancey but I THINK all aftermarket power  window kits except VW Polo MkII and MKII Golf use neg at rest. The above used pos at rest.

I drew the pic after looking at his diagram.  He had a red wire coming from battery going directly to the relays.  Since his wire was red, I assumed it was positive.  After I posted it somebody else caught it and I revised instructions on my next post.  The red wire he had was actually connected to the negative terminal of the battery. 

First of all, sorry for misguiding you by coloring the negative wire as 'red', I was simply choosing different colors from the palette at for some reason at that moment forgot the assumptions with the red color in wiring. I've did 2 other diagrams, based on the diagram provided and the current switch setup.motor.

Here is my current switch setup, basically the driver side is connected to the passenger side, with 3 wires. One is always +ve, while the 2 others are "control" wires, that are +ve or -ve according to the switch pressed in the driver's side. Irrespective of which switch is pressed (driver side or passenger), the output to motor (labeled wire A & B), are either both "nothing" (0v I presume), or A +ve, B -ve in for going up, and A -ve, B +ve when going down.

I've changed the ground and +ve feed as you said. I was not sure with the "switched +ve 12V" on top, but I did a dry run on the circuit and it seems as it should be ground, for it to work well. I don't know if this is correct, but I think the relay setup should go in between the switch and the motor, thus it would involve cutting the wire A and wire B, and connecting the wire A and wire B from the switches to the "switches input" of the relay diagram, and the outputs that should go to the motor to the other end of wire A and wire B. Correct me if i'm wrong, please.

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The only adjustment that needed to be made was to the 2 centermost pins of the picture, you changed it all, you now have a reversal rest at 12v which will work, just safer to have a rest at ground.
What you have drawn will work fine.

ah now i understand what you meant. Can you please confirm if this is what you meant, so as to be sure before wiring the relays?



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How about plan "B".  One of the 3 cables going from drivers side to passenger side should be 12v+  when ign is on. Break this and feed to 86, ground to 85, battery at 15amp fused to 87 and 30 to cut cable going  to pasenger switch. that should eliminate any voltage drops.

yes, howiee, I understand what you mean. However, the problem seems to be something with the switch as I tried that out and it does not do much difference. The wires are standard, with the aftermarket kit, so as another one pointed out, I presume they did make wires as thick as needed.   Thus, the switch might be including some resistance that is dropping the voltage further, so the best way I presume would be the switch controls the relay, which control the motors directly from battery.

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Thanks for tactfully pointing out that most window kits rest at ground. I didn't mean to throw any further confusion into this. Apparently I "misremembered" the correct wiring of even my own truck which has a SPAL kit. I know rest at negative is safer, but for some reason I thought it was positive.

Twin, that picture appears to be correct.

good, i'll try and wire that later on today or tomorrow. Thanks for the info bdw, you've saved me some space near the door by using only 2 relays instead of 4 :) Will post here how it went.

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today I found the time to wire the thing up, and it worked great! 2 relays, and finally after a year of window taking ages to go up, its now moving smoothly :) Thanks alot for the help guys, really apprecaited!

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