Headlight Relays

[markandson]

Originally Posted by Redskinsjbs Sorry Jeff, I still stand on my principle of 'Out with the old, in with the NEW NEW NEW'. Just kidding, I just hate the look of that massive Opel dimmer relay)

Offense taken....I mean no offense taken . I guess I should not forget that you guys are so smart. That double relay latch setup is what is used as the on/off estop circuit on the bridge cranes at my shop, I didn't want to try and describe it because it is a little complicated, but you guys did a great job. I don't have the time right now but I printed both pdfs and I will take a look at your complete solution. Oh and I would NEVER but anything new in MY GT not me....original color and everything.....

[hrcollinsjr]

Originally Posted by Redskinsjbs Technically speaking, in Washington DC you are NEVER allowed to use your high beams,

Or have firearms and ALL politicians have our best interests at heart. Oh crap, wrong forum.

I hope you have seriously upgraded your alternator if you intend to have both high and low beam halogen (?) lights on at the same time especially if you've upgraded the bulbs. You are using headlights with replaceable bulbs? Hope you remember to dim when appropriate or part of my first statement might be a problem. See I was able to make it Opel related.

Harold

[opelbits]

Jay-
We are on the same page about the amperage. The power for the lights comes straight off the battery and is fused before it gets to the relays. What I forgot to mention is that the relays are mounted in the engine bay by the driver's side upper shock mount in my car. The parking light switch merely acts as a signal to the control relay, no heavy loads. All high amp wiring is now under the hood and out of the dash.

Since I kept my original wiring, underdash relays, and micro switches intact, I use the old high amp headlight wiring just to trip the relays. In this configuration, I don't need the third relay.

[Redskinsjbs]

Opelbits -

I must apologize. I misread your diagram. We have drawn essentially the same system, except you have two 'power' relays and one 'switch' relay while I have one 'power' relay and two 'switch relays!

So was talking to Thomas, and I had an epiphany. The only problem is that it only kind of works.

With this newest circuit, one can turn on the headlights with the parking light switch (or micro switches for that matter), and they will come on as Low beams. Then, when one touches the momentary switch for the high beams on the steering column, they will come on and stay on like they did with the stock relays. This is the issue. Once the high beams are on, the only way to turn them off is to turn the headlights as an entity off. Then, if the headlights are turned back on, the low beams will come on again.

So to give a hypothetical situation; You are headed home, driving down a country road after going to the grocery store to get your wife some sardines for her PB and sardine sandwich she was craving. The streetlights end, so you pull the high beam switch to turn on the high beams. You're driving along, driving, driving, and you enter some woods. The road has become considerably winding. You consider slowing down, but you know that if your wife doesn't get that PB and sardine sandwich soon, there is gonna be hell to pay! You are flying around the tight bends! Any bystander would mistake you for Mario Andretti or maybe Ken Block (For the sideways crowd). Then you see an oncoming car in the distance. You are a polite man and know that you should lower your high beams so as not to blind the other driver. You squeeze the High beam switch on the steering column, but nothing happens. The high beams stay on. Its just then that you remember that you have to turn off the headlights in order to reset them. You roll the headlights back into car and as you begin to roll them back out, you look up out the front window and see two very bright and very close orbs of light. You swerve, avoiding a head-on collision by mere fractions of an inch! But now you are headed straight for the trees! With your lightening fast reflexes and god-like car control, you are able to tame the beast that is you Opel GT.

CRASH!!! BANG!!! CRUNCH!!!

You turn around to realize that the other driver is not a driving god which is why they are now in a ditch at the side of the road. No one is hurt, but the experience is frightening for sure. And its all because your wife was craving a PB and Sardine sandwich!!! (Or that you followed some idiot 18 y/o's wiring schematics and had to turn the headlights off in order to turn the high beams off)

[opelbits]

You are correct sir!

Except....

My car is a 69 and the column switch has a slightly different function/operation than later cars. If I recall, there are two different actions, one turns on the stock hibeam relay, the other is a 'dip' or flash that will not maintain a ground and allows the relay to flip back to it's 'rest' position. I'll have to think on this further. Maybe I'll mock up my diagram with real parts.

A flaw in my thinking? My wife will never believe that....

[markandson]

Hmmmm....seems as though the Old man might have had a point back in post #97 . I still have not had the time to look at the schematics, just having some fun with this thread. I was thinking of needing to wire the high beam relay coil through a normally closed set of contacts so that when you actuated the stick the second time it would cause the contact to open and the relay would de-energize, but then the normally open contacts would be made and turn it back on at the same time so that won't work either. Seems like you might have to start thinking "diodes" here in order to create the flip flop circuit.

[opelbits]

Hi Mark-

Sometimes it's fun to try to work thru an idea, if for no other reason than to make sure you understand the problem.

One aspect of this is that it seems everyone is trying to do slightly different things. I'm not an electrical engineer, so working thru a simple three relay system takes me some time and is better than crossword puzzles.

[Redskinsjbs]

All I can say is situation the situation is solved without the use of any diodes!

-'Nuf Said

[Redskinsjbs]

WOOOOPS!!!!

I made a ginormous mistake in my wiring diagram. With the previous diagram, the low beams would be on all of the time. Here is the corrected one. This *should* be correct. . .

[markandson]

You're gonna need a trailer hitch added to your car so you have a way to haul around all those relays .

[Redskinsjbs]

Originally Posted by markandson You're gonna need a trailer hitch added to your car so you have a way to haul around all those relays .

Hehehe. Well actually, 5 of the 7 relays in that system are signal relays which will never see more that 1 amp. Because of that, I could make a small box about that same size as a the original relay that contains the 5 micro signal relays!

For now, in my car I am keeping it the way I have it wired. It works so I don't want to fiddle with it. However, when winter comes, you can be sure that I will be experimenting with the electrical stuff in the car.

I showed this schematic to my Dad, and he said that I might as well just put an Arduino in the car instead. If I did that I would then have a microprocessor in a car from 1973!

Whatever the case, this system works and I am putting together a demonstration soon.

[Redskinsjbs]

Hi Everybody!

Tonight I finally got around to putting together the prototype of the 7 relay circuit that I described earlier. 5 of the relays are very small signal relays that take almost no power. They look kind of like legos and they have very thin wires going to them. Then there are two normal size automotive relays that handle the load delivered to the headlights.

There is a photo attached and a video here:

Headlamp Dimmer Relay Replacement on Vimeo

Headlamp Dimmer Relay Replacement on Vimeo

Bask in the beautiful light of alternatives to the old Opel Dimmer relay!

I am going to see about making the package smaller and possibly using solid state relays to protect against vibrations.

All that I have to say is eat my shorts nay-sayers!!!

[mc1457]

Did some quick research on this as I was going down the same winding path and Jay pointed out the need for a latching relay. (Car Alarm, Car Stereo, Mobile Video, and Cruise Control Info for Installers is a really, really good reference site for this stuff, btw.) What we're looking for is a late 60s/early 70s VW dimmer relay, VW part no. 111-941-583 or NAPA part no. AR284 or Kirkham Motorsports DNI-0127. I found a source for these relays (they're pretty hard to find) at ~ $15, but the minimum order is $25. Or the 5-relay setup should work fine (see Car Alarm, Car Stereo, Mobile Video, and Cruise Control Info for Installers - they have a great page on relays and various circuits created with them)

[mc1457]

NAPA wants $37 for these (they can bite me).

Bought 2 at cip1.com (minimum order was $25 and the relays were $15)