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General Topics/Tech TipsDiscussion on break in periods, rider comfort, seats and pad suggestions. Tech tips as they become available will be posted here.
ok i am going bonkers... i know i saw a schematic or a link on HDForums for a circuit with a relay and a capacitor and a resistor that takes a constant "on" signal from the high beam and closes the relay for 2 seconds and then "stops". i.e. activates ("presses") the garage door opener for two seconds and then releases, after you toggle the high beams. i just spent over an hour looking for it again and cant find it. i now have the time to put an opener on my softail and cant find it... does anybody remember it?
ok, sorry guys .. it was on this other site. tried to copy the diagram . but won't copy over... this won't take more than 3 minutes to put together. will take longer to splice it in, than to put it together.
but this one web page will allow you to use just about ANY switch you want to use...or have available... even a blinking turn signal!
The capacitor allows the coil of the relay to be energized until the capacitor stores a charge, thus de-energizing the coil. This one will give you about a 1/2 second output. The resistor bleeds off the charge of the capacitor when positive voltage is removed from the other side of the coil. You can increase the output time by simply changing the value of the capacitor to higher capacitance.
basically for about 4 bucks, when you toggle the high beams, it will activate the garage door opener for a half second and then it releases or stops, UNTIL the next time the high beam gets toggled.
Sorry I'm replying to a 3 month old post but I just got this idea myself.
so if I'm thinking and reading correctly, your high beams will not be effected. You're just pulling enough juice to send the small signal to the switch side of a garage door remote. So your high beam switch, in this respect, is just acting as a momentary as far as the output of this circuit is concerned.
Man, the things you forget when you don't use them every day.
yep, doesnt affect the headlamp in any way. i put this on my heritage. just stuck an old door opener in the headlight. Used a little hot glue to stick it in place. I went from the high beams hot wire to the relay.when the high beams come "on", the relaygets energized, it "fires" the opener for about a half second, then the relay "lets go". the opener still uses its "wafer" battery for power.could have wired it to the 12 volt in the lamp, but it runs on 3 volts and i didnt feel like spending more than 15 minutes putting this together.so i didnt solder in a resistor to the battey contacts to drop the feed voltage for the opener to 3 volts. works great. one thing though, apparently placement of the opener is important. the metal headlamp case reduces the signal strength a bit. mine works from about 100 feet away.
...and again 3 months later I'm replying to an old post. However this time I have news, I got it all put together. I even took pictures for other people to be able to see. What does blow my mind though is it's not firing only during the high beam indicator. It fires when going to low also or cutting the ignition switch off. My only guess is the capacitor is charging backward firing the relay coil the other way. It works and I can deal with it, I'm just not 100% sure what the hell is going on.
OK, so after much thought I think I've figured it out. The reason mine works switching the headlight switch either way is it's draining the capacitor back across relay and to ground across the LED. So, to counteract this I'm going to put a diode on the supply side of the relay from the LED supply line. Just wanted to post this so somebody else may not make the same mistake.
Looking for specific part numbers or spec of each component
Skr8pn,What is the specific part number/spec for the relay, capacitor, diode, and resistor you used? A final schematic would also be helpful if you have one. Thanks.
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