close sunroof with remote

alright fella's (and gals), im new to this site.  I was actually directed here from another forum i belong to and wow, i can definitely see myself with some long nights ahead of me on this website...looks like there is a lot of good info. 

Anyways, i've recent come across a situation im trying to get right but cant seem to put my finger on it.  Im guessing there should be somebody on this site that should definitely know what's going on. 

Alright, this is going to be kinda long but i really want to explain it well so i can get some good feedback on it. I would really appreciate some serious wiring guru's to help me out with this. It deals with my new alarm system and my sunroof.

To begin with, i just bought a new car alarm, installed it and the alarm came with two auxillary outputs that can be activated with my car remote. Both of the auxillary outputs are sent to GROUND, they are NOT positive power wires. Both auxillary outputs can be programmed through the alarm system for pulsed, latched, or timed relay operation.

I used one of the auxillary outputs to hook up my underbody neons (this information is not really pertinent, but it helps explain my relay wiring). What i did to do this was run the auxillary wire from the alarm (remember its a ground) to the ground post on the relay. I then hooked up a power and a power jumper from the battery to the relay so there would be a constant for the relay. I then hooked up my underbody neons to the last post of the relay. Okay, this worked great...i hooked it all up and everything works great.

I also have an aftermarket power sunroof in my car (made my webasto).

What i want to do is set up my second auxillary output on my alarm to be able to close my sunroof with my car's remote.

So, what i did with the second auxillary output is wire it up EXACTLY how i wired up the first auxillary to my neons (see above for explanation on wiring if you skipped it). The only thing i would do differant is send the wire from the switch post of the relay to the sunroof, instead of to the underbody neons. This is where it gets tricky.

Here is how the sunroof is setup. There is one switch and four wires. The switch is a rocker switch that is always in the neutral position. When you press the rocker switch up and hold it, the sunroof opens. When you press the rocker switch down and hold it, the sunroof closes. On the backside of the switch, like i said, is four wires. One wire is a constant power to the switch, one is a common ground to the switch and the other two both go to the sunroof motor (my guess is that one is a power for opening the sunroof and one is a power for closing the sunroof since the motor obviously has to move in two differant directions).

So, i figured if i just ran the wire from the relay to the wire that closes the sunroof (this wire would be located between the sunroof switch and the sunroof motor), that when i activated my second auxillary on my car's remote that it would send the external relay to ground, which would send power to my sunroof wire for approx. 10 seconds, which would result in my sunroof closing. Simple enough, right? No.

I had to find which of the two wires that goes from the sunroof switch to the sunroof motor was the one that sends the signal to close the sunroof, not open it. So i broke out the old voltage meter and checked each wire for power when the sunroof closing switch was pressed and held.

Well here is where im confused.

When all four wires on the back of the sunroof switch are connected, the sunroof workes properly (obviously), but in order for the switch to work at all, ALL FOUR wires MUST be connected. So, for instance. If i disconnect the wire that goes to the runroof motor that is responsible for closing the sunroof, then the sunroof will not only NOT close...it wont open either, and vise versa. Also, when i checked the voltage of the two wires going to the sunroof motor here is what i got. Whenever the switch to either open or close the sunroof is NOT being activated, there is approx. 0.5 volts going through the wire, but when the switch to either open or close the sunroof IS activated then the voltage jumps up to just about 5 volts (give or take a volt or two, i cant remember exactly what the number is).

So what im wondering now is why there isnt a full 12 volts being sent to the motor from the switch to open/close the sunroof, and is this the reason that when twelve volts is sent to the sunroof externally through the relay that it wont activate the motor to close the sunroof?

So yah, there is all the information i have and should be everything anyone needs to figure this out. If you want to take a stab at it and need some more information let me know.

again the goal of the project is to close the sunroof using the alarm's second auxillary output on the car's remote.

***UPDATE****

me and a buddy of mine who's an electrical engineering student took a look at everything today and came up with the following.  1.)  all of the wires must be connected because th switch is just reversing the polarity of the motor to open/close it.  2.)  Since the polarity is reversing, there actually needs to be 2 relays, one for the power going into the sunroof that closes it, and another one for the ground to the sunroof.  Both of these relays would be powered by the second auxillary wire from my alarm system.  So basically whenever there is some power sent to the sunroof unit, there will also be a ground for it in order for it to actually work.  3.)  We thought for sure this setup (two relays, one for ground, and one for power) would work but we hooked up all of the relays/ wiring and as soon as we connected the power source to the battery it just blew a fuse and it wouldnt work. My buddy said that what is happening is that when the switch is being depressed, power is being sent through one wire to the motor and a ground through the other wire to the sunroof motor, but when nothing is pressed and the switch is in a neutral position, then all three wires except for the man power source wires are grounded out. So when power is hooked up to the relay/wiring/sunroof system it automatically shorts out the system and the in line fuse blows.......i think, haha.

now i know the last part is kinda sketchy, my friend was kinda talking over my head when he was talking to me about it so i wasnt following him perfectly but from what i gather this is what he said...it might make all the sense in the world or it may make none, im not really sure.  But to me it really through me for a loop...so im basically more lost now then ever before.

With all that said, anyone got anything for me?? 

I would probably try disconnecting the swtich from the sunroof all together (all four wires).  Then, hook your two relays up as you had discussed (one sending 12vdc to one side of the motor, one sending ground to the other side).

Then, check to see if it works remotely.  If it doesn't, then you most likely have issues with your relays/wiring.  If it does, then try to figure out what you have to do to make the switch work with it.  Depending on how complicated the switch is it may be possible to rewire the entire thing to work a little better with your application.  If you could set it up so that both wires rested at ground under normal circumstances getting the sunroof to open or close would only take one relay.

What kind of car is this in?

KPierson wrote:

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What kind of car is this in?

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its a 1998 dodge ram 1500, sunroof is aftermarket and so is the alarm.

i thought they made modules 4 this ?

natsys wrote:

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I'll take a stab at it.

It sounds like you have a switch that has power and ground, and the remaining 2 legs go to the motor of the sunroof. Those 2 legs "rest" at ground. When you press the switch one leg is removed from ground and power is applied to it. Thus the sunroof motor now has power on one leg and ground on the other and moves in one direction. Press the switch the other way and it lifts the opposite leg from ground and applies power moving the motor in the other direction.

One relay should do the trick. Make sure it's a SPDT relay.

Hook up terminal 86 to constant 12 volts positive.
Hook up terminal 85 to the actuator wire from the alarm.
Determine which leg has 12 volts power when closing your sunroof. Cut this wire and hook up the side from the sunroof switch to 87a, hook up the motor side to 30.
If you're sure your sunroof runs off of 12 volts and not the 5 you mentioned earlier hook up constant 12 volts positive to terminal 87.

For a better understanding of what this will do see this. Basically you're using a relay to lift the ground from the motor leg and apply 12 volts. It's very similar to reverse polarity door locks found here on this site.

Hope this helps.

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i think you might have hit the nail on the head with this one.  I was wrong about the approximate 5 volts to power the opening/closing of the sunroof, i double checked that and it really is actually 12 volts. Also, the way you have described the wiring/switch setup is exact, so im guessing the SPDT relay should do the trick.  I just cant understand why i didnt think of a SPDT relay to begin with....thanks a lot though, im going to try this out in the next few days and i will get back to you on how it works out.

well i tried what you said Natsys, and it didnt work.  What happened was, i hooked everything up to the relay like you said, but when i went to connect the second constant 12v the whole thing just blew the inline fuse between the battery and then relay i was hooking everything upto.  What next?  Any suggestions, idea's?

Anyone else got anything?

where would i go about finding one of these sunroof modules?

natsys wrote:

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Did you mix up your 87 and 87a wires? If you did you would be hooking up your 12 volt power source directly to ground. It really sounds like that's what happened.

87a and 30 are always connected inside the relay when the power to the relay's coil is OFF. At this time 87 and 30 do not connect.

87 and 30 only connect when power to the relay's coil is ON. Now 87a and 30 are not connected.

Also make sure 30 goes to the MOTOR side of the wire you cut and not the switch side.

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natsys,

no im positive i had it wired exactly like you said.  Could it be possible that the relay is bad?