DIY Total Closure for a car

Only as long as the windows/sunroof have end-of-travel sensors to cut motor power. A lot of makers don't bother simply letting the motor stall which, if you're doing this for 15s each time you lock the car, they'll soon burn out.

As to choice of unit - a simple transistor/resistor/capacitor/relay circuit would do. Last time I used a 555 in the car it literally[1] blew itself into pieces the first time the engine was fired up. It was a super low power version though - I've had success before with the "normal" sorts.

Cheers, so theoretically it should work. I'm fairly sure my windows have end of travel sensors... but I'll check that they do. The driver's window has a one-touch up and down switch, so that must have end of travel sensors to avoid burning the motor out. The passenger one I'm not so sure about. Same with the sunroof, that has a one-touch closure button, so I'd assume that has sensors too.

Thanks a lot for the tips :)

There are commercial units available to do this, sold as add-ons / optional extras. But if you really want to do it yourself, here's a couple of pointers...

You won't usually find limit switches, typically the controller senses the increase of the motor current when it stalls. This is normally at the end of each travel direction but also includes when something gets in the way. Children and dogs to name a few.

The 'one touch' buttons are best described as resetable circuit breakers. At the end of travel the current goes up and cuts off the switch.

One of the smarter controllers I have used was sensing the motor brush noise instead of the current. Noisy while the motor turns, quiet when it stops. Very tricky I thought at the time, a long time ago..

This one was also sequenced and could drive up to four devices. By sequenced, I mean that it only did one at a time. When one finished closing the next one would start, etc... etc... Doing it that way makes for a happier battery...

Small Japanese (car's) windows were often lower power and easy to close but a Mercedes or big old Chevy were much more power hungry. The current sensing controllers often struggled with these. The sequenced controller was also useful for closing a convertible(roof) in that the roof must be closed fully before the windows go up.

Even did a rain sensor for one installation too, closing a sunroof and windows if the driver forgot about it.. Save him from a soggy seat.

Food for thought I hope... ;-)

Greg the Grog

And idiotic 'mates' - the bloke who was supposed to buy my Golf GTI when I first got it ended up buying an X reg Golf GTI 1.8T instead (his girlfriend made him finance a newer car, instead of running a 'banger'). So far he's ended up with a few hiccups, but the best must be the mate seeing if the windows did that 'stopping thing' when something gets in the way.

They sortof do. The window mechanism broke. Then the door trim broke when he tried to fix it.

Citroens have stall type shutoffs, as do Volvos - later 480s have total closure, in fact.

Richard

Go buy a mk2 (with curvy bumpers/bonnet bulge/grille) Rover 800 and take the window motors (with position sensors); centre locking motors; 'CCU' unit; keyfob and IR receiver; the whole wiring loom then graft that onto chosen car.

One shot up/down on all windows/roof; current sensing on all windows and sunroof; sequenced total closure/lazy locking; 1 minute delay after ignition off to let people close the windows; you name it it does it. If it still works anyhow; the rbush sensors on the motors die and the switchpacks die - replace these and you're fine for 10 years until they die again.

Very nice idea, but I don't really wanna rip too much of the car apart as it's not that old and still worth a fair bit on resale (V reg, new shape Celica).

Anyone had any experience with Microscan alarms? They do a total closure add-on module which I bet could be adapted to do the job...?

Yargh, why are you wanting to bodge a V-reg Celica!

Don't Clifford do good modular alarm systems, or am I still living in

Richard

snip

They do modular systems - "good" is another matter. Apparently they have improved recently but the past few years have seen /lots/ os dissatisfied Clifford customers.

Agreed !

Phone your local Car Audio place, and buy a top-spec alarm system. Will cost well under a grand, including fitting, and will do everything you want.

I am going to put a new alarm on the car in the long term.. this was just a short term fix for an annoying problem. Shouldn't really require much bodging, literally just adding a circuit into the mix.

If it starts to look too hard and it's possible that I might mess something up, obviously I'll just wait until I can spare the cash for the full new alarm system (quite fancy one of the Cliffords with remote engine start etc)...