VTenge

I want to install puddle lamps on the underside of the side mirrors and have them automatically light up before getting within the intelligent key unlock range, not the remote unlock range which is much farther. To unlock the door with the handle button the intelligent key must be within 30" of the door handle but I would rather have the puddle lamps automatically turn on when I am much farther away, at least 6'-10', so that it would show a puddle before I was standing in it, and mainly just look cooler.


I don't plan on actually starting on this for a couple months because my job doesn't start until the end of July and I will need to save up some money so I can buy electrical gadgets to test how far away the intelligent key can actually be sensed. Now onto the nerdy stuff. Once the maximum range is determined I would design a circuit that would turn the lamps on once the intelligent key signal was detected AND its dark, I'm assuming there is a light sensor that is active when the car is off that I can use to determine if its dark outside. It would then have to turn off once the car is started by wiring an input from something that is only powered when the car is running and having that trigger the circuit to turn the puddle lamps off. This may be able to be done using just transistors/relays as the brains of the circuit otherwise I would use a microcontroller and program it to do all that. I just want to have my own completely speparate circuit that only uses the stock wiring as inputs and would in no way affect it's normal operation incase something goes wrong with my design.

Is anyone else who has a good amount of electrical knowledge interested in this? Just think about walking through a parking lot at night and when you are still 5 spaces from your car the ground all around it is lit up, with your key still in your pocket. This could also get some legal use out of ground effect lighting.

P.S. I have only had my car for 5 days and haven't even driven at night yet so I don't know if the interior lights turn on when you are within 30" or not. This could also be used to make those turn on sooner but that would invole altering the stock wiring and I wouldn't try that until a good amount of testing has been done, just another idea.

nalc

iTrader: (11)

IMO I would figure out which lights come on in which scenarios, and just tap a relay into them. I know that in my 4th gen, when I unlock it the dome light comes on, so if I were doing this, I'd wire it up to that.

For the lights, I'd use something like this, but in a waterproof housing
http://cgi.ebay.com/Fantastic-High-b...3%3A1|294%3A30

As for light sensing - if that's an important feauture, you can use what's called a cadmium sulfide light sensor.

If you hook up a CdS light sensor (which costs like a dollar) in series with a relay's coil, connect it to the battery, and wire your LEDs up to the normally closed switch, it will only activate the LEDs when there is no light hitting the sensor (which means a high resistance, and therefore no current through the relay). CdS sensors are finnicky little bastards though. You definitely need to play around with a multimeter to figure out how it calibrates, and you would probably want several of them (because if you park in the shade, it will read as darkness).

IMO, the simplest way is to just wire it to the domelight, and have them turn on during the daytime. CdS sensors are a pain to calibrate unless you're using a PIC, and that's way too complicated.

VTenge

That would work, but that would be too easy. I want the challenge of making them turn on without unlocking the car, so that you don't have to take the key out of your pocket. Those lights look good, but yes I would also need a watertight housing and preferably one that would not protrude too far out of the bottom of the mirror to keep it looking clean, lots of time to find that stuff though.

I spent my last year of college using all kinds of sensors and micronctrollers and designing circuits to be used with them. I also got to use some much more advanced microcontroller boards that could be programmed with LabVIEW and you can make those do amazing things quite easily, they are just overkill for this mod and a bit pricey. I don't think the job I got is going to use very many of these skills that I spent so much time learning and eventually enjoying, so I figure I will make complicated systems in my hobbies and I would still be able to switch jobs later if I feel the need.

KillaKam

Funny that you though of doing this cause I was also thinking about doing this soon. I dont plan on doing as much as you are but I do plan on wiring it up to the map lights seeing as how those go on when I unlock the doors. Good luck you you on your mod when you do it.

nalc

iTrader: (11)

yeah, but LabVIEW won't run without a PC interface. afaik, there aren't self-contained PIC boards that can run labview, you just use a PC with it, and a DAQ. Labview is the classic British roadster of the interface world - when it works, it works beautifully. When it doesn't, it's a major pain in the *** to troubleshoot.
Probably a PIC board that runs C or something like that will be more than powerful enough for this project, if you need a microcontroller in the first place.

What you really need to do is breakout the DMM and the factory service manual and start looking at pinouts of the alarm/remote entry system. Chances are, it's a self contained system. If there's a pin on it that's hot when the clicker is nearby, that would make things awesome. If there isn't - it gets complicated, and probably isn't worth the hassle of getting down and dirty with the alarm system.

You'll need to get very involved in how the remote entry system works... I don't even know if they publish schematics for them.

VTenge

LabVIEW embedded for ARM is kind of new, you write a program on the PC then its compiles and loads it to the microcontroller, http://www.ni.com/arm/. You can buy one of their evaluation boards or use a program like EAGLE to design and build your own custom board with only the I/O you need to reduce size and cost, but this requires surface mount assemlby and a hot plate which I am not sure if I want to buy, I'll look into prices and decide all that later.

I already found the data on the Intelligent Key door handle atenna in the service manual. http://www.nicoclub.com/FSM/maxima/2009/. fwd.pdf at the bottom is the index, I already downloaded the whole thing to make searching around it quicker. Heres a 3 page section that has a lot of info on it http://filebox.vt.edu/users/tacomatt...%20Antenna.pdf.