Those stupid delay dome lights in vehicles

In the time it took you to write this post you could have gone online and searched to find a wiring diagram for this vehicle. That's the ticket

Well now.. I want to "thank" you for pointing out the absurdity of delay-dimmable dome lights. To be honest, I never really thought much about them before, but now they're sure to piss me off every time I leave the vehicle!

The delay and other smartness is likely in the main computer of the car. I have a European car with CANBUS wiring all over the place, and it has features like that as well. But it looks like the designers did a little bit of thinking. When I lock the car, that light immediately switches OFF (this is different from the headlights, they can be selected to be on for like 30 seconds after locking the car, but I do not use that feature. seems to be helpful when you park on a dark driveway and want to find your way to the door, but I do not have a driveway).

When entering the car, the light comes on and remains on after closing the door, but it shuts off when the engine is started. Or after a minute or so, when you don't start it. I think it is convenient.

Maybe in cars of that vintage there still is a "delay device" (something like a 555 with different capacitors) but in cars like mine (04) it is all done in software. The best thing you can hope for in that case is to find a friendly garage employee or car enthousiast who wants to program this feature for you. There usually is some "super secret" car configuration tool that interfaces to the OBD connector to set features like this, as they often vary between countries and models of the car.

if you can't remember what the light did when you got into the car and closed the door then yeah, you got problems.

Maybe in the light, or maybe it uses CAN bus.

old-school has +12V at the dome light and wires to grounding switches at the doors... they could still be using that... so yeah you can probably just replace the circuit at the dome light with an on-off-on switch. or maybe you need to retain with the control hard wired and wire a bypass switch.

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     ?

Really? You're battery dies overnight from a dome light? Sure it's charged?

Replace your incandescent dome light with an LED equivalent: It draws "less than 1 watt" and can probably be left on forever. It also produces less heat which will eventually cause the plastic dome light to turn yellow or deform.

However, if running an incandescent dome light overnight runs your battery down, you have an almost dead battery. You might want to add distilled water to the battery, invest in a new battery, or at least test the battery:

I'm not sure what manner of switch you have but I suspect it's not designed for many on/off cycles. I have such a switch on the two dome lights on my 2001 Subaru Forester. I use the one near the hatch back quite a bit to force the light on when the engine is off. It has gone intermittent 3 times in 9 years eventually inspiring a junk yard replacement, which is now showing signs of becoming intermittent. The dome light over the front seat has been rarely used, but is now showing signs of falling apart. It's much the same in every car I've owned. The switch is made to be set in one position and left there forever.

I have an LED flashlight clipped to my belt at all times. I live in a forest, with no street lights. At night is sufficiently dark that my aging eyes require about 15 mins to adjust. Trying to climb my stairs carrying groceries in the dark is dangerous. So, I use one of several LED lights. If I'm going to do more than just walking up the stairs, I use a rechargeable LED headlamp:

Sorry, but progress cannot be easily stopped. Consumers demand goodies and gadgets, and the automobile industry needs these features in order to differentiate their nearly identical products. It is likely that the next generation of dome light will be operated by a

77-79GHz microwave radar, that recognizes the owner, and turns on the dome light when the owner approaches. Or, maybe an RFID transponder. Or, maybe voice control. It's possible that you might be allowed to program such a device, but I think it unlikely because as soon as the "smart dome light" becomes commonplace, it will be inscribed in some manner of automotive "safety" standard as mandatory to prevent the epidemic of slip and fall accidents caused by the lack of lighting.

Please fasten your seat belt as it only gets worse.

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Jeff Liebermann     jeffl@cruzio.com 
150 Felker St #D    http://www.LearnByDestroying.com 
Santa Cruz CA 95060 http://802.11junk.com 
Skype: JeffLiebermann     AE6KS    831-336-2558

I was in a car wreck in which if I had been wearing a seatbelt it would hav e broken my pelvis.

Also to the OPer here -

You need a 1973 Olds Cutlass. Get the floor shifter and the roctet 350 V8 o f course, and it might be a Vette engine. I had one of those, they adjusted the shift points for the higher RPM torque range, they moved. If you need a bigger car then get a Delta 88, or even better a Holiday 88.

I'd say to get a 1970 Toronado but it wouldn't be right for you, I'd like t o have one for the hell of it, but they are not that useful. They are fast though, the only US car ever classified as both a luxury car and muscle car at the same time. I ripped the blacktop off the street with mine once in a while.

I can show you how to set the carb so it starts in the cold almost as good as a fuel injected car, throw the book away.

There are plenty others, I am partial to Oldsmobiles. The problem with the older cars is you need a very comprehensive theft deterrent system. They ma ke them, and some car clubs tolerate their presence on vintage cars, others do not.

I even got some Freon 12 for the A/C. A class AA (or whatever) car did not come with a "CONVERTED TO R134a" sticker on it. Jay Leno wouldn't want it t hen.

Yes sir, they are fixing my eyes this year and when I go looking for a car it will be an old one.

battery down, you have an almost dead battery. "

Yup. When you first start it the charging voltage should be near 15 volts. It tapers off fairly quickly. Newer cars need a hot battery. I had one that would crank but not start with a low battery. Really, six injectors and al l that, just too much. In warm weather it might not hit 15 volts, and you'l l see the voltage drop about a volt in the first 90 seconds. It might take a bit longer in cold weather.

When I was living with someone who didn't like pot and there was no garage we used to sit out in my van and party, hours and hours. Dome lights on, st ereo on, sometimes the headlights. Never failed to start in the morning.

HA ! One time I (well we) had a little newer style Dodge Charger with a Peu got engine. Not bad really, gears were a bit too tall for it but if you can drive you can make it move. (it was a stick of course) Well one of our peo ple had a couple of super duper high capacity batteries for trucks or somet hing and I put one in. THE BATTERY WAS ABOUT BIGGER THAN THE ENGINE !

I am too talkative today so I will stop now.

Mate you are trapped in the future, you really don't belong here.

I think you mean "trapped in the past" as in an anachronism.

Personally, I'm somewhat into Steampunk, which is much the same as glorified old gasoline powered vehicles but one techical generation earlier:

Steampunk pocket knife: Current version (maybe):

Topic drift at its best...

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Jeff Liebermann     jeffl@cruzio.com 
150 Felker St #D    http://www.LearnByDestroying.com 
Santa Cruz CA 95060 http://802.11junk.com 
Skype: JeffLiebermann     AE6KS    831-336-2558

Well, Toyotas and Hondas have an immediate off when you shut the door. But, just set it for the short delay, and then put tape over the control so it can't be changed to a different setting.

Jon

It must be a rubbish battery if that can kill it.

Is a "dome light" what we in Europe would call a courtesy light that comes on when you open a car door and then stays on for a programmable period of between 0 and 120s after closing it according to taste?

The idea being to allow you to find your way to your door.

I can't see the problem. Mine does what it says on the tin and its settings have never randomly altered. Perhaps the OP should RTFM.

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Regards, 
Martin Brown

Yes. Sorta.

Yes but a better idea is the head or running lights. My vehicles have a setting (that I don't use) that keeps them on for a minute or two after the engine is shut off.

Too hard. Whining about these new fangled things is much easier.

He's not whining about the new fangled things. He's complaining about the user interface.

The problem is that surveys, marketing research, and focus groups provide customer feedback to engineering with tales of how customers are demanding more features and functions in their automobiles, all of them individually adjustable to the owners personal standard of excellence. So, engineering designs in these features only to find customers complaining about the complexity of operation. It's an endless battle between flexibility and simplicity of operation with no winners at either extreme. By default and sometimes by intent, a compromise is required. The user interface is made to be intuitive, which is interpreted as anything that can be operated WITHOUT an instruction manual. So far, that works. Where it fails, or is going to fail quite soon, are in complex devices with overly simplified user interfaces, such as Bluegoof devices and LCD screen automobile dashboards.

I read the OP's comments quite differently from most. What I see is a dome light, which has the very useful feature remaining lit for a specified time, with a user interface that is far from intuitive. The switch has several settings, probably with no clue as to what they do without reading the manual. There's also no feedback to tell the user a setting has been changed, or what it was changed to. I'm sure the OP would not have a problem operating the dome switch if it announced the time delay and the off/on positions.

So, the next time you hear someone wining about some problem, ask yourself "what problem are they really trying to solve"? In this case, the problem is not the complexity of the dome light functions, but rather that he's unable to operate it. It was difficult to tell, because most of the rant was about how the dome switch operated, and not about his failure to operate it.

--
Jeff Liebermann     jeffl@cruzio.com 
150 Felker St #D    http://www.LearnByDestroying.com 
Santa Cruz CA 95060 http://802.11junk.com 
Skype: JeffLiebermann     AE6KS    831-336-2558

Wrong. He wants the dome light to work like it did fifty years ago. He wants it to be a dome light, not a night light.

Sure but he's whining on the simplicity side. You do the same with your "Bluegoof" sorts of cracks.

...and the OP wants the automobile to remain an intuitively obvious tool. There is no need for a user manual for a hammer (except in California, of course).

He doesn't want complication. He does *want* to RTFM.

Steampunk is the inevitable fate of all goth kids who one day wake up with grey hairs and have to face the fact that the leather pants and black vinyl shirt just aren't fitting as well as they used to

...

BTW, what "dome" is being referred to? Presumably not a pleasure dome, as in "Kubla Khan"!

Mike.

I don't have time for that shit anymore. After all I'm not working steady. Where would I find the time to read the NYC phone book ?

Let me splain how it works to the good folk around here.

You go up to the car, put your key in the door, unlock and open it. Get in. Put the key in the ignition, make sure it is in park or neutral.

In an automatic you put it in drive and, well, drive. If it is dark turn th e headlights on.

If it rains, on the dash there is a switch that says "WIPER". Use it. The l ever on the left of the steering column turns on the directionals, up is ri ght and down is left.

If you want to listen to the radio, turn it on with the knob on the left, s elect the station with the knob on the right. If you like the station, pull out one of the buttons and push it back in, then it will auto tune to that station. Neato huh ?

if you are picking someone up and the doors are locked, reach over to the r ight and pull the knob UP to unlock.

If on ice, drive slow. Pump the brakes to stop.

If in a stickshift, when taking off you put it in gear with the clutch down and slowly let it up while pressing the gas. Then when the engine seems to be revving alot, push in the clucth and switch to the next higher gear. Wi th practice you can do this wito0ut pressing down the clutch again.

When you get there, remember to turn off the engine and take your keys, ad if you turned on the headlights, turn them off to avoid a dead battery ad a ump start later.

That is the ENTIRE operating manual for a car. All the rest is a bunch of g arbage.

. Where would I find the time to read the NYC phone book ?

n. Put the key in the ignition, make sure it is in park or neutral.

the headlights on.

lever on the left of the steering column turns on the directionals, up is right and down is left.

select the station with the knob on the right. If you like the station, pu ll out one of the buttons and push it back in, then it will auto tune to th at station. Neato huh ?

right and pull the knob UP to unlock.

wn and slowly let it up while pressing the gas. Then when the engine seems to be revving alot, push in the clucth and switch to the next higher gear. With practice you can do this wito0ut pressing down the clutch again.

d if you turned on the headlights, turn them off to avoid a dead battery ad a ump start later.

garbage.

I would miss my heater on cold winter days. :( I'd also miss having heat ed seats. :)

Rick C.