Interior lights -delay off

[Andy Sollis]

Hello all,

I've recently fitted some new interior lights in my 1977 Spitfire 1500. My car has both driver and passenger lights and switches on both doors (I mention this as my 1976 car doesn't! Only drivers side to my knowledge!)

 

The new lights are adhesive strips containing 15 LED's each side. They look great and brighten the car so much compared to the dull yellow bulbs, but what I would like to do is throw in something that will delay the lights going off.

 

Has anyone got any knowledge of doing this? I've seen bits for sale on eBay for about £10 that will go in the original circuits, but these are for bulbs so go out after about 15 seconds. With LED they will go much longer.....

 

Any thoughts?

 

Andy

[Darren Groves]

Hi Andy,

 

I done this to my Herald last year, you can read about it here:

http://triumphherald1360.blogspot.co.uk/2013/11/courtesy-lights.html

 

It was published in The Courier Nov/Dec 2013 as well.

 

Very simple to do.

[Andy Sollis]

Thanks Darren,

Having a look now.

Can't seem to upload the pics from my iPad/iPhone as they are too big!

 

Andy

[Darren Groves]

Hi Andy,

 

Images are pretty small. Here's the article if that's easier:

 

Courtesy Lights

 

The single fascia lamp in the Herald isn't the best at illuminating the inside of the car, so to see what I could do to improve this I done a quick search on EBay.

 

Being a convertible the options are a little more limited as to where you can mount extra lights, so I decided on a pair of LED strips, available in various lengths and colours, but I opted for 25cm and white.

 

 

The strips have a self adhesive backing, which turned out to be pretty useless but I had some double sided tape which done a much better job. I mounted them behind the dashboard on the underside of the bulkhead, this lights up the footwell nicely.

 

The wiring was very simple, the red wire needs a permanent live connection, add an in-line fuse if you wish, the black needs to be earthed via the existing wire that runs from the fascia lamp to one of the switches on the A-Post. The additional lights can be turned on by the fascia lamp switch.

 

Second part of the job was to install a delay unit so the lights didn't turn off immediately when you closed the door, which is quite useful if you're trying to find keys, glasses etc. when it's dark. There were various units available, but I opted for one that was smaller and neater and had a pre-set 12 second delay.

 

 

Again very simple to wire, the red connects to the earth wire from fascia lamp to one of the switches on the A-Post, the black wire to a permanent earth.

 

Below is a wiring diagram showing both modifications.

 

 

Hope that helps.

[Andy Sollis]

Hi Darren, sorry, I ment my pics. Yours worked fine! I've used by chance the same LED's and tried the same timer but it fails to work, I think it's faulty!

 

Do yo leave any light bulbs still in the system or just the LED's as I would have thought with even 30 LED's the delay timer would take nearly a minute to drain?

 

Andy

[Darren Groves]

Hi Andy,

 

I left the original fascia lamp in mine, so the LED's are additional. I will try with just the LED's a little later to see what happens.

 

Cheers

Darren

[Darren Groves]

Hi Andy,

 

If I take out the festoon bulb in the original lamp fitting nothing works consistently. Sometimes they go out completely, other times they go dim and stay on, and currently 2 LED's on one strip stay on bright. This may be happening as one of the strips is possibly faulty as recently a couple of the LED's have died.If I put the festoon bulb back in the timer works perfectly.

 

Maybe your solution would be to put a conventional bulb in the circuit somewhere?

 

Cheers

Darren

[Andy Sollis]

Hi Darren,

Thanks. I've had similar results. But my lights don't stay on at all with the bulb in the circuit. Wonder if mine is faulty! They just go dim without.

I'll just leave the delay out for the time being

Andy