Lighting gadget found in my car, any ideas?
25 August 2008, 04:09 PM
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Lighting gadget found in my car, any ideas?
Having a look around under the bonnet of my car today and came across this:
It was connected to the battery, a single wire went to one of the sidelights, and two other cables were run from it down into the front bumper, one on each side.
The cables going to the front bumper weren't connected to anything and just pulled straight out - presumably they were connected to lights there at some point. The car's an STI and just has blanking covers now, as it should.
What's odd is that the connection to the sidelight is the only control signal. Apart from that, it only has power and (presumably) the outputs to the lights
- and there's an awful lot of circuitry in there if all it's doing is turning on a couple of driving lamps when the regular headlamps are used.
Looking more closely at it, though, it appears that there's a radio receiver on the board! That would explain the lack of any other wired control signals, but I've never seen anything like it. Why on earth would a car have radio controlled driving lights?
Maybe it's been used as a pace car at some circuit in Japan?
It was connected to the battery, a single wire went to one of the sidelights, and two other cables were run from it down into the front bumper, one on each side.
The cables going to the front bumper weren't connected to anything and just pulled straight out - presumably they were connected to lights there at some point. The car's an STI and just has blanking covers now, as it should.
What's odd is that the connection to the sidelight is the only control signal. Apart from that, it only has power and (presumably) the outputs to the lights
- and there's an awful lot of circuitry in there if all it's doing is turning on a couple of driving lamps when the regular headlamps are used.
Looking more closely at it, though, it appears that there's a radio receiver on the board! That would explain the lack of any other wired control signals, but I've never seen anything like it. Why on earth would a car have radio controlled driving lights?
Maybe it's been used as a pace car at some circuit in Japan?
25 August 2008, 04:18 PM
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when i was wiring in my digital boost gauge i had to get under the dash and i found some wires running to the lights and a switch on the dash that turned the side lights on when the ignition was off. i still cant think what it would have been used for. i also found a tracking device at the back of the dash and i little box with 5 wires coming out of it with no name on it which i think is wired into the ecu 
adam
adam
25 August 2008, 05:18 PM
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Nope - on the back of the box it says 'Remote' with a number (maybe a transmitter code?), and on the PCB it says "light". That's all.
The car also had upgraded headlight wiring - an extra wiring loom with a relay and a separate battery connection attached to each headlamp. I assumed it was just there to reduce the voltage drop, given the thin wires in the Impreza's standard loom, but maybe there was originally some other reason for it? The bulbs are standard, not high wattage types.
The car also had upgraded headlight wiring - an extra wiring loom with a relay and a separate battery connection attached to each headlamp. I assumed it was just there to reduce the voltage drop, given the thin wires in the Impreza's standard loom, but maybe there was originally some other reason for it? The bulbs are standard, not high wattage types.
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25 August 2008, 09:37 PM
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when i was wiring in my digital boost gauge i had to get under the dash and i found some wires running to the lights and a switch on the dash that turned the side lights on when the ignition was off. i still cant think what it would have been used for. i also found a tracking device at the back of the dash and i little box with 5 wires coming out of it with no name on it which i think is wired into the ecu
adam
adam
You prob got a switch that changes the brightness of the clock when the lights are on, labelled 'bright' (pointless I know !!)
26 August 2008, 01:41 AM
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Nope - on the back of the box it says 'Remote' with a number (maybe a transmitter code?), and on the PCB it says "light". That's all.
The car also had upgraded headlight wiring - an extra wiring loom with a relay and a separate battery connection attached to each headlamp. I assumed it was just there to reduce the voltage drop, given the thin wires in the Impreza's standard loom, but maybe there was originally some other reason for it? The bulbs are standard, not high wattage types.
The car also had upgraded headlight wiring - an extra wiring loom with a relay and a separate battery connection attached to each headlamp. I assumed it was just there to reduce the voltage drop, given the thin wires in the Impreza's standard loom, but maybe there was originally some other reason for it? The bulbs are standard, not high wattage types.
One of my imports has got a ss labled relay wired to a quad set of pro rally lights.
Last edited by SqeekyMclean; 26 August 2008 at 01:44 AM.
26 August 2008, 10:39 AM
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Won't be xenons, as those need a high voltage ballast and drive circuits, all thats in that box is some 12v Relays, caps, transistors, diodes, resistors and some basic logic gate chips or op-amps (by the looks of it).
Looks like a simplified switchbox like that used for towing electrics. So guess its a relay unit for auxilary lighting....albeit with remote switching.
The extra electronics are the drive cuicuits for the relays (barring radio reciever). They are there to stop any current being drawn from the switching circuit (which on more "clever cars" like a 5 series BMW would trigger a bulb failure warning on the dash readout). Also a few extra bits and bobs are placed there to stop contact bouncing and arching inside the relays, which can occur when switching on/off high current loads.
Looks like a simplified switchbox like that used for towing electrics. So guess its a relay unit for auxilary lighting....albeit with remote switching.
The extra electronics are the drive cuicuits for the relays (barring radio reciever). They are there to stop any current being drawn from the switching circuit (which on more "clever cars" like a 5 series BMW would trigger a bulb failure warning on the dash readout). Also a few extra bits and bobs are placed there to stop contact bouncing and arching inside the relays, which can occur when switching on/off high current loads.
Last edited by Shark Man; 26 August 2008 at 10:45 AM. Reason: remote switching
26 August 2008, 12:20 PM
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The ICs are an op-amp, a D-type latch, and another chip that I can't readily identify. It's made by a company called AsLic, but the part number isn't listed on their web site and I can't find a data sheet for it. A couple of chips with very similar numbers are described as 'fixed address encoder / decoder', which isn't terribly helpful.
Maybe it's just a relay box for a set of driving lights, and the radio link is there just to save having to find a route through the bulkhead for wiring to an internal switch. That would explain why it says 'remote' on the back of the box; there would originally have been a transmitter unit inside the car.
There was half an HKS boost controller in the car when I bought it too - again, just the under-bonnet electronics, not the driver's control unit. Looks like it was owned by an enthusiastic tinkerer in Japan who didn't bother to take everything out before he sold the car.
Maybe it's just a relay box for a set of driving lights, and the radio link is there just to save having to find a route through the bulkhead for wiring to an internal switch. That would explain why it says 'remote' on the back of the box; there would originally have been a transmitter unit inside the car.
There was half an HKS boost controller in the car when I bought it too - again, just the under-bonnet electronics, not the driver's control unit. Looks like it was owned by an enthusiastic tinkerer in Japan who didn't bother to take everything out before he sold the car.
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