I like to turn my lights on when I drive, so I was wondering if anyone has talked about having them automatically come on/shut off when the car is turned on/off.
-E

 

it can be done. but you would have to rewire the postive lead to a relay and back to the ignition circut so when the igntion positive lead is dead (ie. when the car is shut off) it activates the relay to shut the head lights off..

obviously it sounds easier than it is

 

Has anyone done this before? If not, I'll get some electrical engineer majors from my school to help me out, and I can do a writeup.
-E

 

not that i know of

 

well then, looks like I know what my contribution to this forum is

 

if you use my idea i want royalties

 

I'm not an electronics engineer but I'm an Avioncs Technician. Aircraft...Cars ummm same thing Ya know there's one thing that you might want to take into consideration and that's the life of your light bulbs - especially if your using aftermarket bulbs. It seems like those things just don't last as long as regular bulbs do. One way that you might could try and stop this from happening (as fast) is using a resistor somewhere in the circuit (before the power gets to the light - this will restrict the bulb from running at it's full capacity during the day) that way it's a little dimmer than regular power and it may last longer, kinda like REAL daytime running lights. I don't know if you'd even want this seeing as though it would kinda defeat the purpose of NOT having to turn that little **** at night...lazy a$$ J/K. Oh yeah and when you're explaining this to your engineers you might want to remind them to take the resistance of the actual bulb into consideration when choosing what value resistor you might want to use...if you go this route

 

I think due to the cheapness of oem bulbs, I'm going to make them the same brightness as regular lights.. I figure I turn them on when I'm driving anyway, so there's no net gain in bulb usage from this setup. My dad's Suburu works this way, but I also noticed that when the parking brake is engaged, the lights turn off. This might not be such a bad idea, I can think of a few times I want my car on but my lights off . This might take a little work, so if anyone has an idea on that matter, let me know. I expect to try this this weekend.
-E

 

I think all daytime running lights turn off when the e-brake is up. I'm pretty sure there's a wire down there hooked up to a contact point...That little light on your gauge cluster has to turn on somehow. I'm sure it wouldn't be hard to tap into that wire. This really shouldn't be that hard - it'll take some patience running wires though...try not to get too frustrated and rip stuff apart

Good luck

 

This may be a simple fix. Pick up a "Day time running light module" from Canada. I think it should plug right in. (If you have a shop manual, it plugs into "E42" on the front left side of the car. (by the washer fluid)

If you want, I can take some pics of it on my car, so you can see where it is located.

 

You know its funny that we have had DTRL's in our country in all cars since about 1991 and I had to look in the FSM to see how to disconnect mine and you guys want them.

The factory one though only operates at half brightness because both headlights are wired in series through the DTRL circuit so only about 6v at each light.

I just don't like them on when I am racing because of the load and I like to have control of what is on and whats not. I guess the best idea would be to just put a switch to control them so you can decide if you have DRTL's or not.

We have travelled to Fla a number of times over the last 10-15 years and everytime we would cross the border to the US during the daylight hours people would flash their lights at us because they think we forgot and left our headlights on.

 

 

This site has all the info you need:

www.lightsout.org

 

Man, that site really hates DTRL. I like em. Makes those morons who don't know how to turn on their lights in the rain or at night more visible.

 

No offense, but that site is the perfect example of junk science and raging conspiracy theories.



-E