I'm wondering how many ECN members get involved with automotive electrics from time to time.

In my area of rural England, there are plenty of mechanics at local garages to carry out oil & lube jobs, brake replacement, and all the other "grease monkey" jobs, but few who will get involved with wiring.

As a result, I seem to get called upon fairly regularly to look at vehicle wiring. Many problems are very simple to solve, being down to vibration and corroded connections. Other times people have bought extra lights or fancy radios (sorry, "in-car entertainment systems" ) and don't know how to wire them in.

Tow-bar wiring is another favorite, and the associated systems in travel trailers. The latter seem to be a cause of great confusion to many people.

Sometimes the job is even simpler, like Volvo owners wanting to disable the daytime running lights.

So how about your neck of the woods -- Do you get involved with this sort of thing?

Why would you want to disable the daytime running lights??? English/American invention which significantly reduces accidents.

Because it's a waste of (very expensive) lightbulbs to have them burning during bright daylight. Kind of like keeping your front-door light on so people can see your house during the day.

It's bad enough that they're making these lights so bright that the oncoming traffic practically blinds you.

Er, Sven... majority of DRL's on cars today use the high beam filament running at a reduced voltage. The low beams used during normal regular night driving will burn out well before the high beams do.

Sven, I think you'll appreciate these links:
http://www.motorists.org/issues/drl/index.html

http://www.lightsout.org/

And from Britain:
Drivers Against Daytime Running Lights - UK


Does that answer the question as to why I get asked to disconnect DRLs?

C-H,
English/American invention? I thought they originated in your part of the world.


[This message has been edited by pauluk (edited 09-09-2003).]

i work on large truck from time to time to fix few oddball electral related items and not too long ago i work on coach"bus" to hook up trailer wiring it was pain in a butt because the coach have straght 24 volts but trailer have 12 volts but i came up a soluation to use the inveter to drop the voltage and use the relays as need as far for running daylight headlamps it is mantory in cananda but usa it is optional but few think it is a annoy with it and find a way to disable it i done allready few vehecles but i really cant tell here because too many diffrent way to deal with it

merci marc

Paul:
Good day my friend, how's things on your side of the pond??

Last vehicle I worked on (4 yrs ago) was a NEW rescue rig for a local trauma center. It came from the Mfg with a host of 120 volt problems, bad shore power interconnect, 240 volt hyd. pump motors for "jaws" with a 208 volt genset, etc.

I spent about 50 hrs on it, and believe me, I couldn't get done fast enough. It was tough. Tight spaces, had to dis-assemble a lot to access the genset; be a contorsionist to get to the pumps, etc.

John

Paul,
I normally stay away from anything like this, but, when I first started working where I am now, I had the job of assisting to wire a Mobile Lithotripter Bus with Mains and Inverter/Batt systems in it, as well as the standard 24V systems.
Never want to work on ANYTHING as complex as that again, it nearly ate my brain!.
But, having said that, I still install the odd stereo player in cars for friends and other small jobs.

I do a little (personal mostly) Auto Wiring here and there.

Audio systems, Window / Door locks, and similar "simple" stuff.

Used to really enjoy working on Autos (like back in the 1980's), but now its a different story!

Scott35

I work on the side for a car dealer friend of mine, He can buy a car at a discount because the radio/heater/"Tokyo by night" dashboard doesn't work.
I get to fix it, get paid for it and he can resell the car. Everybody's happy, and I can buy my cars cheap.
That and I can work on my own vintage British car's wiring, The wiring is easier to figure out than the diagrams!
I also rewire the odd steam loco too. steam driven generator at 32 vdc.

TW

I had the pleasure of completely rewiring my grandfathers restored 1937 two door chevy coupe. Rebuilt everything from the lighting sockets to the horn. Very enjoyable as now we have three generations of work in the vehicle. My grandfather restored the body etc., my dad retored the motor and other mechanical parts. The main resotartion is now about 25 years old and I drive the ca in the local parades.

Shane

Sven,
you'll have to replace those lamps, what, two or three times in the life of the car?

>It's bad enough that they're making these lights so bright that the oncoming traffic >practically blinds you.

Sorry Sven, but unless you have some other type of lamp on your side of the pond, that's nonsense, in my humble opinion.

Paul,
I've been told that the daytime running lights were 'invented' after WWII by British and American military drivers who discovered that they didn't have as many accidents if they kept the lights on.

Sorry for the threadjack, back to auto electrics:

I work in a company that makes a heavily modified GoldWing motorcycle. Since it has a big hydraulic system and a controls for this, there are lot's of wires. Extra fuse box, relay box and so on. It has two tow-bar outlets, one for the lights on the trailer and one for the lifting controls.

Believe it or not, but we've even put a small screen in the dashboard and a rear view camera behind the driver.

Here's a link


[This message has been edited by C-H (edited 09-10-2003).]

What's the environmental impact of replacing the lights on 100 million cars two or three times? (I doubt they both would be replaced that often - or rather I hope not since the car I'm driving now has DRLs)

Interesting stuff rom the first link in PaulUK's second post:

" The first, last and only large scale U.S. study that has been completed and published on the effects of DRLs as safety devices, was conducted by the insurance industry supported Highway Loss Data Institute. The results; vehicles equipped with DRLs were involved in more accidents than similar vehicles without DRLs. The difference was minimal. but the meaning was strait forward, DRLs aggravate other motorists, obscure directional lights, waste fuel, "mask" other road users that don't have headlights on, or don't have headlights period (pedestrians and bicyclists) and their net effect on accident reduction is zero or worse."

More significant:

"If daytime running lights were on all the vehicles in the U.S., we would burn an extra 406 million gallons of gas each year. That's only a couple gallons for each vehicle, but in total it is more than all of the vehicles in the country burn in a day. At $1.50 a gallon, that's $600 million per year. Looking at it another way, an extra 8 billion pounds of Carbon Dioxide would be added to the atmosphere by this law."

That's not even mentioning the waste of materials in manufacturing the things and their wiring, or the extra drag on the front end of the vehicle where the lights/lenses are installed, or the extra weight, or cost added to all vehicles.

If we want to improve safety, how about requirements for making turn signals more visible at wider angles (seem like the more money you spend on a car, the less functional its lights are), or brake lights installed on the front of vehicles, or redundant wiring for critical lamps or corrosion-proof sockets and wiring? Shouldn't vehicles over a certain weight (say 4000 pounds) be governed to 75 mph max? All non-emergency vehicles? That would save a lot of lives and property damage. I do see some value in running lights though (but maybe not enough to justify their existance)- like when one headlight burns out your car won't look like a motorcycle at night.

What cars really need are arc fault current inter...

The new 42V system for cars will have arc extinguishing connectors, to prevent fire in case they come apart from vibration.

CH said:


Sorry CH, I should have said regular headlights, not DRLs.

In the past few years we've gotten a new type of headlight on cars here. It's something that throws off a VERY BRIGHT, intense ice-blue light. It's usually part of the package on luxury cars (like Lexus).

When you're used to the old cars with the square and round sealbeams and the halogens, you look at these things and it's like these folks have the high-beams on all the time.

Those, if they catch you in the rear view mirror do run the chance of blinding you. I don't know who's bright idea these lights were.

What's worse is that most of these lights are found on the high-end sector of the massive 4x4 utility trucks (Lincoln Navigator, Cadillac Escalade, etc.). These things have a very high wheel base, so it's like you get the light shining right through your rear window and into the mirror.

ROTFL! Yeah, they overdo it on some models these days don't they?

I know what Sven means about the intense blue headlights. They've started appearing here as well, and most seem to be very small diameter lights, so the beam just in front of the car is very concentrated. They might be great for seeing WITH, but they're blinding to everyone else, even on low beam.

One thing I won't get involved with is the ECUs (engine computers) on late-model cars. Without the appropriate diagnostic tools for these modern contraptions it's almost impossible to get the thing running as the manufacturer intended. So check for connections, burned out sensors, etc., but that's about it.

Having an interest in old cars I much prefer working on the wiring of these. You could even change panel lights on many by just reaching up behind the dash. It means getting into an awkward position admittedly, but it's not that difficult. On a lot of the newer models it takes 2 hours to work out how to get the dash apart, 2 minutes to change the bulb, then another hour to get everything back together again.

I just bought a new work truck, 2003 GMC with a Reading body. Seems like a nice truck.
Opened the hood and their is a 10" sq. plastic box on the left front inner fender. Take the cover off and their are literally 50 fuses in there. In the dash there is another 20 or so. Walk over to my 67 Mustang and there is like 6 fuses total My how things have changed

Small aside—looks like you have to be an SAE member to get the details, but there is www.sae.org/42volt [and ]www.42volt.com]




[This message has been edited by Bjarney (edited 09-10-2003).]

Gotta weigh in on DRL here. The statement about the"first, last, and only study" is a bunch of bull. One of the early controlled experiments was from Greyhound. My dad owned stock in them and all kinds of interesting stuff showed up in the mail. They studied their fleet with and without DRL. A nice, controlled test - same vehicles, same routes. Using DRL resulted in a 5% reduction in accidents. The cost and pollution arguements could be applied to almost anything in a car. There is a certain cost to safety and it's based on the good to society as a whole. The 2 or 3 replacements is also fradulent. It was estimated that full voltage low beams would have to be replaced 2 or 3 times in the life of a car and that was considered unacceptable. That's why reduced voltage systems were designed. No anticipated bulb failure in the life of the car.

Whatever the rights or wrongs, the lighting wiring has certainly gotten more complex - To the extent that many DIY car people with only basic electrical knowledge can't figure it out.

Cars sold in the U.K. aren't required to have DRLs, but since 1986 or thereabouts they've been fitted with a "dim-dip" device. (Note: In British terminology low beams are often called "dipped beams," hence we also have a "dip switch" rather than a dimmer switch).

The dim-dip wiring is arranged so that with the light switch in the parking-light position you get reduced power applied to the low-beam headlights when the ignition is turned on.

Another peculiarity that seems to be fitted to some European cars is that when the ignition is off the turn signal switch can be used to illuminate front parking & tail lights on one side of the car only. You'll sometimes see cars parked at the curb with just their left park/tail lights on during the day, where the driver signaled left to pull in and park and the switch didn't get canceled after he stopped.

I too find those blue Xenon lights really annoying. They're more energy efficient than the old ones which means that they put out more light with the same power consumtion.

Sven, yes, someone using the full lights definitely blinds you.

Also from motorists.org :

It all started with a Greyhound Bus Company public relations gimmick to promote its "safety image." There was an apparent reduction in bus accidents and the conclusion was made that the daytime headlight use must be the reason. There was a burst of publicity and daytime headlight use was christened as a great highway safety strategy. A subsequent study, slightly more thorough, determined that daytime headlight use on busses had no effect on accident frequency. That study never got much attention.


I wish they would have linked to the 2nd study to save their readers the effort...

I did see one site claiming a study found DRLs reduced accidents with pedestrians. Here it is - WARNING, link is to a pdf file, may be annoying to 56K users:
http://www.tarweblog.com/membersonly/view_attachment.cfm?twattachmentid=57

I like how we can find studies online to back up any position one might take on any subject....

Thanks for that link. I didn't read all 34 pages but the opening statements seem to say DRL didn't affect fatal crashes (ed. Maybe because the added warning is not enough in those typically high speed, severe crashes) but did show a 7% reduction in non-fatal and a 28% reduction on auto-ped. I read some of the nmo site and, frankly, their retoric is so inflamitory and unsubstantiated that I can't believe a word of it. Not enough information to pin down any of the studies save maybe the original Greyhound one. I'll consider supported arguements but they sound about like some of our labor-management meetings.

I noticed a couple of years ago that these seem to have become quite prevalent in France (they may have been visiting cars from neighboring Germany, I suppose, but as I was blinded by the lights I couldn't make out the license plates! ).

It's quite ironic when one considers that until a few years ago France insisted on yellow headlights, because they claimed that regular white lights dazzled too much.(Even visiting foreigners were expected to paint their headlights yellow!)

Here's a quick outline of the trailer connections which are the most widely used system in Britain and seem to cause much confusion:

Trailer Wiring Guide.

Notice that these are rather different than the trailer wiring found in North America due to the use of independent turn signals instead of common bulbs, and the split wiring for left/right tail/marker lights.

One problem is that the standard for the 12N was changed in 1980 and that for the 12S in 1998. The latter change has brought with it a particularly nasty side-effect of shorting out the battery on some car/trailer combinations, or at least blowing fuses!


[This message has been edited by pauluk (edited 09-12-2003).]

I too dabble in auto electrics now and again.

Here's another car lighting problem I've just come across on a 1986 (ish) Volvo 740.

I pulled the DRL fuse as requested, which took all of 30 seconds. However, there's another insidious "feature" on this model to disable. If you are driving this with headlights on and then stop and switch off the ignition, all the lights go out!

I've seen models where you can't get the headlights on without the ignition before, but to have parking/tail lights go out as well is crazy. You have to turn the light switch back to the P position to get them back on.

Too many killed batteries I suppose. I've never seen anyone actually use the parking light.

I've worked on my car's electrical system. I figured out that the reason why the passenger-side headlight was dim is that the connector was loose. Pretty high-level stuff.

As to the bright headlights, what has occured is that people get annoyed with drivers using these bright headlights, and so they try to find something brighter. I'm trying to find a mercury-vapor type of lamp, especially in a particulary irritating shade of blue.

I also agree that "parking lights" are of no use. If it's dark enough for parking lights, use headlights.

The other irritating practice around here (gosh, as I'm typing, there they go again!) is people beeping their horn as they get to intersections to make sure that the people who have the stop sign actually stop. They (beep-beep) every (beep-beep) block (beep-beep) as they (beep-beep) drive along (beep-beep). I'd like to find a way to rig their horn's circuit to their air-bags. That ought to shut them up for a while. Maybe the city should install bells, lights and arms similar to those found at RR crossings, rather than those silly stop signs.

i install the odd radio but can very easily turn out to be a nightmare of a job if you dont have the correct plugs ,cut off old plug joint sw live, light live, ignition live, permanent live, negative and four pairs for the speakers maybe more, working in a cramped hole were usually not much slack on cables! one thing i also like to do is down size the fuse in the radio until i have everything working then reinstall the original.

also fitted electrical socket for towing electrics also a bit tricky when you realise you need cable running to each rear light for the indicators and reverse light depending on which side it is situated.
if your really good sometimes the lighting cables for one light pass through the other light so if you pick the light with all cable services running through it all your joints are made at the one point.

i find auto electrics time consuming but always welcome a change now and then

ps when necassary i joint the cables by soldering then heat shrinking.

[This message has been edited by james S (edited 09-20-2003).]

sorry about the spelling mistake above (necassary)can't seem to amend already amended parts of text?

Be careful soldering joints in an Automotive enviroment. Vehicle usually produce vibrations which could lead to the soldered joint failing. A high quality tap or butt connector is a better option IMHO.

Joe

[This message has been edited by Joe2 (edited 09-20-2003).]

Guys,
I have a question.
I installed a CD player + Changer into a car (Toyota Marino), for a mate yesterday.
And as we all know, cars don't usually come with wiring diagrams.
But, the question I have is this:
Is there a standard colour coding system for the Audio speakers wiring, where these are run in the same loom as the 12V wiring?.
The reason I ask this is because this was the one thing that took so long to figure out, I ended up having to remove the speakers, individually (and these had different wire colours again!) and "belling the wires out".
And the original AM/FM Radio was no help at all.
You'd think that (like trailers), there would be a standard colour code system, but I'm not too sure.
Can someone please help me in this respect?

There's no single standard unfortunately, but many modern systems with four speakers do seem to share certain traits.

If you can find the bunch of eight wires going to the speakers you'll often find that they use one color for the front and another for the rear. The grounded sides are often plain wires, and the "live" sides get a stripe: one color for right, another for left.

An example might be:

Front left: Gray/Blue, Gray
Front right: Gray/Red, Gray
Rear left: Green/Blue, Green
Rear right: Green/Red, Green

Substitute other colors for any of those at the manufacturer's whim and you get the idea. I've seen it done the other way as well, where they use the base color to indicate left/right and the stripe indicates front/rear, although that doesn't seem to be so common.

If you can identify the eight speaker wires from the bunch, you can check which ones go to which speaker with an ohmmeter, so long as the environment isn't too noisy. Set your meter on a low ohms range and as you apply it to each pair you'll hear a slight rustling noise from the appropriate speaker. The stripes should then let you get the phasing correct, unless someone has fiddled with the connections at the speakers themselves.

I've soldered automotive wiring for a goodly number of years and never had one fail. Crimp splices, on the other hand, corrode and break with astounding regularity. If they are going to see any wetness, I have taken to filling them with RTV before I install. I am also prety careful with the cardinal rule of soldering: Make the connection mechanically secure before you solder. With the complexity of modern car wiring, most factory manuals now devote a section to wire repair and replacement. The instructions hardly ever say to strip it back and crimp on a red butt connector. Hey, I use scotchlok taps occasionally but I'm not at all suprised if I have to redo them.

I have a '70 Nova drag race car that the only wiring in it is mine. I have been working on cars since I can rememeber and motorcycles even before that.
This is not at all to say I am an auto tech but I can hold my own on pretty much anything older and do OK on new stuff. Code scanners are a wonderful tool if you know how to use them.

Update on lighting wiring, from having to look at a late-ish model Ford Mondeo recently. This has got to be the most diabolical and convoluted system ever devised!

The lighting switch is rotary on the dash and has four positions. One position clockwise from off gives parking/tail lights and fully clockwise turns on the headlights, although these will only work when the ignition is on. The parking light setting gives dim low-beam headlights when the ignition is on.

The park/tail lights stay on when the key is turned back to accessory, but switching off and removing the key results in no lights at all.

To leave the car with parking lights on, you have to turn the light switch to the extra position, counterclockwise from off. But if you then put the key back in and turn it to the accessory position, the lights go out again!

Talk about taking a simple system and making it needlessly complicated to use.