Contour Enthusiasts Group Archives Forums Modifications Aesthetics Delayed Door Handle Lights

So I did the cool lights in the door handle mod. It looks great, but the problem is that when I take the key out, the lights go off. So my passengers are still left fumbling around in the dark.
Has anyone figured out a way to add some sort of a delay to the lights?

I am sure it can be done. You may want to try pulling power from the interior lights that stay on when the door is open....... Let me look into it.

K What about putting in a second LED that gets power from the interior lights. It only comes on when the interior lights go on. That way when get in the car and when you shut the car off they will be on until that light turns off.

Or put a small capacitor and a diode into the circuit. When the car is turned on it will charge. After the ignition is turned off the capacitor would discharge and the diode would keep the power from going upstream into the system.

Unsure of which capacitor to use. That would be up to someone who has played with them a little more.

Or hook them up to a toggle switch.

Ex D,
The Cap idea is a fairly good one.

LED's do pull current, not much but sum.

Unless you use a truly huge cap, you won't get much current from it. All the charge and dump cycles will beat it up and eventually destroy it's service life. Caps like to work in 'steady state service', not hard charging and discharging.

Each LED pulls roughly 10ma. You would need about 100 of the LED's to pull what a regular 12watt bulb in your car pulls.

The trick is not to use just a cap. But a transistor switch. The transistor can take the current draw. (and overload w/o fail, should it's output be shorted) A transistor switch can fit inside of a small box or a 35mm film can.

If there is a lot of interest in this, I can create a little circuit that will do this task.

It can be made with standard Radio Shack parts and a little skill. Depending on how fancy you want, the time can be fixed to some pre set value, or variable with the additon of a little adjustable resistor.

Add a few other cheap parts, and the turn off will be gradual fade, rather than a sharp turn off.

I have been doing weird little industrial electronic projects for years, this would be just one more.

Ive modified circuits for various ham radio repeaters. Built a cash drawer interface for a PC. Made a 'relay less' linear power amplifier for high speed VHF packet radios. Built some exotic mobile radio direction finding circuits. Ive built some strange goods over the years.

Like most stuff that goes into cars, the electronics are simple, the instlation would be a nightmare. Are there sockets and wires already run in the doors or will that all have to be added?

Since you seem to have LED's in each door pull the circuit would sit between where you get the key signal from and the wire going to the LED's.

Depending on how you did this, there will have to be some flexibility.

For example if we hook it up like the door switches are used. A wire is grounded and the blub is pulled to ground. If that's how your LED's are hooked up one variant can work that way.

If your LED's are connected to ground and your power switches on the high side, I can work that as well.

The trick would be to make the most of what's already built into our cars. Will have to look up the wire harness in the Hayes manual tomarrow and see what's in my 99.

If your interested, I can work up a prototype, and a little simulation ckit. Shoot me a message with your regular e mail address. If the project costs more than 15 bucks, we are gold plating the thing.

Keep it warm
Jack Crow

Thumbs up for this one I've been pulling my hair over this for some time as well. Count me in if you cook up a solution.

I just point and laugh if they can't get out. Tell them I'll meet you in the bar. They'll figure it out.

Dude!! You kick a$$!!! If you could figure this one out, I'd be in your debt. Let me know how it goes.
I think we should aim for a 10 second delay followed by a fade to black. That should look tight!

Here an excerpt from the original light installation that may prove helpful...
On both rear doors, the leads are long enough to use alone. You'll tap into the wires coming out of the window switch plug. Black(LED) to black, and Red(LED) to solid purple.

On the driver's door, you'll tap into the lock switch... Tap the Black(LED) wire into the black wire coming from the lock switch plug. Tap the Red(LED) wire into the purple w/YELLOW stripe wire.

On the front passenger's door, use the window switch plug. Tap Black(LED) to black from the plug. Tap Red(LED) to purple w/WHITE stripe.

I was thinking... why not make a delay for the windows too?