Halo Lights

That's basically all I had done. I powered the light feed from the alternator using 16mm2 cable to the relay (70A - it also supplies two driving/spot lights) and then took two feeds to the high beam connectors. The existing light feed supplied the relay. I then used a similar relay for the low beam. I also replaced the earth cables from the headlight sockets with thicker cable and took them to a more suitable earth point.

A couple of helpful links (with diagrams/circuits).....

As mentioned earlier, I will carry out a similar mod on the 130 where the headlights really dim when the twin Kenlowe 16" fans cut in! I plan to fit the Crystal headlights and 6000K bulbs.

When doing this mod, make sure you know the correct pinouts for the H4 bulbs (looking at the back of the bulbs).

| | | | High Beam | ` | Earth | | | | ----------- Low Beam Malcolm.

Malcolm.

It won't be anything like as low as 9V and, as QrizB says, the relay will only be drawing milliamps causing minimal voltage drop.

Malcolm

On or around Thu, 08 Jan 2004 19:26:13 +0000, "Paul S. Brown" enlightened us thusly:

[snip cunning plan]

isn't this summat like what they're doign anyway now, on modern stuff?

I've a lot of time for nice simple systems, mind, there's mostly a way you can bodge it to get you home...

Yes, the coil resistance of the relay is much higher, resistance elsewhere in the circuit is the same, and the voltage is split in proportion to the resistance.

I'm not going to try the calculations, but a relay coil is typically a couple of hundred ohms, instead of a couple of ohms.

On or around Fri, 09 Jan 2004 07:30:58 +0000, Austin Shackles enlightened us thusly:

more time still now... see other post with unprintable subject line...

The other day i was thinking how nice it would be to be able to wire a car up using lots of relays with different ID's that could be controlled by a unit somewhere. I was thinking of cat5 cable and tcp/ip since im used to that.. I've spent the last couple of hours reading about RS485, and it seems very useful, and it could do what i wanted, but is it possible to buy cheaply an RS485 relay. It shouldnt be an expensive thing - just a relay which you can set the ID of?. I can only find sites selling RS485 inteface cards and no actual useful bits!

Tom, sign up to Pauls list. He seems to have a pretty clear idea of how it could be done, and if he keeps making it sound so easy I might actually do something about it!

Hi guys

I have been reading the thread for the past couple of days and have got a question

What is it your trying to do youve lost me lol

Just interested in the techno bably seeing it was about headlights :-) only interested becouse im doing some hi tech gadgets in a sIII for some lighting controle and other bits and bobs just curiouse as to what and how you were doing it.

All the best guys

Paul

A quick recap! We seem to have got as far as a three wire bus around the car in a circle - 1 wire for power 1 wire for commands and 1 wire for data collection (e.g. sensors etc). Someone also suggested a manual circuit for hazards, but as the 109 doesn't even have them that's probably not a big issue for me.

Paul has set up a mailing list so we don't have to keep this thread going on here. I personally would have just kept this alive here, as I'm not a big fan of mailing lists but I'll just go along with whatever people prefer. It's idle curiosity for me at this stage, but I may well have a go at something if I get time.

I think that a few of us have different, yet related projects either 'in planning' or 'on the boil'. The thread serves two purposes:

1. To remind me how blinkered I can be when planning tings
2. To remind all of us that playing is good :-)

Maybe a fusion will take place and some of us will complete our projects...

Martyn

It's interesting to notice that

Martyn has a pretty good idea how he is going to build the computer and display, but has (relatively) little clue how to work the D2A and A2D.

Paul has a pretty good idea how all the commands and wiring will work and what relays, PICS etc he needs, but hasn't given much thought to the human interface or computer system

I have a fairly well advanced idea of how to log all the data for every journey and automatically download it to my home server by wireless LAN and/or GPRS, but no idea about the wiring or PC installation

So between us we have most of it covered, but each has started their 'design process' working from their own particular core skills and is now starting to wonder about the stuff they don't know about.

Mandy, of course, knows exactly what colour it will be...

Me neither, although I subscribed anyway, partly to see how it pans out and partly because I had some faith in the list owner not being a clueless f*ckwit (even though I prefer mailman to majordomo...)

Does mean I may have to progress my ideas into something more tangible, though :-)

Martyn

Right. I'm there!. When do we start? :)

We all seem to have some ideas. If we all put them together we might be able to get something that works(or atleast does something!) out of it! :)

Hi all

I think I may be catching up

If im right you working on a system of logging a data about the journy of a vehicle speed max/average route distance that type of thing from a pc pased gps system on board the vehicle and then transmitting that information in one form or another to a base system.

Hell im interested in this just for the pure curiosity side of me.

One of the projects I have on the go at the moment involves tha visual and audio warning systems on an incident support unit being controled by a pc system on board a 20 year old s3 with a small touch screen on the dash doubleing up as a gps come dvd vcd player.

This is my first ever landy and the bug has got its teeth stuck in big time the s3 I got at the moment is a tow truck by birth and is staying that way with some storage lockers being built in and some other nifty bits and bobs and im toying with the idea of doing a custom built ground up defender or maybe s3 with a defender front end im glad theres no swat for the bug just hope my bank account finds a botomles vault :-)

Good luck with all your projects and please do keep post coming or can you let me know were to sign up for the mailing list if that would be ok id like to see how this pans out for you all the guys in the states have been messing big time with computer controled systems and im itching to have a go on somthing here :-) then again I always was a nosy bugger and wanted to know what you could do with what.

All the best people

Paul

Sign up by sending mail to snipped-for-privacy@geekstuff.co.uk with the first line of the subject being

subscribe landietronics

P.

Only partly - and that was partly my part idea.

I originally wanted a digital dashboard. I wanted the ability to measure, store and analyse data such as speed, water and oil temp, oil pressure, engine and vehicle dynamics (especially related to certain terrain) and boring stuff like fuel consumption. I wanted to do this because my knackered old dash guages in my 30 year old 101 were all pretty much, well, knackered.

Then the idea came to build this around a small computer and I rather liked the thought, being somewhat sad, of having this powered by a computer operating system called Linux. The adventure in my mind continued until a few others decided to interfere with 'reality' and some 'good ideas', hence we are all now talking and I'm feeling (again) that I really should have kept my fecking mouth shut in the first place as I now have to demonstrate that I know more than I do... Ho hum...

Paul and Tim (and inevitably many others yet to come) will all have very specific skills and competencies born of their own similar projects of vehicle control, which will help, I'm sure, to create something that knows where it's been, where it's going and how long it will take to get there. It'll know and understand what it costs to go anywhere, will know when to turn or stop - and can indicate this to other road users and the driver it controls. It will also wake you with a cup of hot coffee when you need it most (hopefully not whilst doing 95mph on the M1).

Our labours will most certainly result in a couple of fine 101s, a Rangie Classic to die for and numerous offers from BMW for rights to our IP.

We will obviously sell to the highest bidder and buy a Jaguar :-)

Martyn