Re: Courtesies relay

["Jan van de Wouw" <Jan@xxxx>]

--- In dmcnews, Adam Price wrote:
> the other day I noticed that my internal lights and
> door lights were not turning on. I checked the fuse for
> "courtesies" and it was blown. I replaced the fuse and 
> it blew the second it made contact. I blew a number of
> fuses testing this. I then removed the relay and replaced
> the fuse... and it works!!
[snip]
> Why does the circuit work correctly with the relay
> removed?? I removed the white relay.

Adam,

What you are referring to as a relay is actually the delay for the 
interior lights; this is supposed to give you some light after you 
close the door(s) to find the ignition and/or put on your seatbelt(s).

By removing this unit you simply removed the delay-function, 
keeping everything else operable.

The delay isn't really that good anyway, so if you don't miss it, 
don't bother replacing it. If you DO want a delay -like I did- there
is 
a way to make it more reliable, but this involves some wiring 
underneath the center console behind the radio on the drivers side.

If anyone is interested in this modification I can make a write up
for that too, only problem is that I used some locally available 
parts, so I don't know if something similar is available overseas 
(I'm in Europe).

You CAN try using a commercially available Interior Lights Delay, 
but as I discovered when I tried this doesn. It work that good 
because of the lengths of wire involved and because of the switches 
at the doors that aren't that good...

The system I came up with has a relay that is controlled by the 
switches (and a special delay timer) that in turn switches the
lights. This way it doesn't even matter whether you have one door 
open or both and/or for how long you opened the doors; the delay 
and brightness of the lights is allways at it's maximum. 
My lights have never been so bright untill I did my modification; 
the ground connection provided by the switches just isn't up to 
the current draw for those lights.

Good Luck,

Jan van de Wouw
Thinking Different... Using a Mac...
Living the Dream... Driving a DeLorean...

#05141 "Dagger" since Sept. 2000

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