The simplest VK $4 headlight reminder ever!

[craigvk]

Guys, girls. As I am a bit of a electronics hobbyist, I am always looking at electronic devices and kit building and I had an idea just tonight!

I have 3 piezo buzzers sitting in my parts cabinet and I thought how simple would it be to add this to my VK as a headlight reminder. As you know, the VK's have a dash globe pop up if you turn the ignition off when the headlights are on. So here is what I thought of. What if I added this piezo buzzer inline with the dash globe globe and it will buzz as a reminder and I will never have a flat battery again! Something that only the later model cars have eh?

I haven't installed it yet because it's dark, but all you'd need is a couple of pieces of wire, solder and the buzzer ($4 part) plus a little heatshrink to make it tidy and cover the soldered terminals on the buzzer and the wire to the dash.

You connect the positive and negative buzzer terminals to the globe wiring on the dash. You solder them. When you solder the buzzer terminals, don't melt too long. You don't want to cook the unit.

You could cable tie the buzzer under the dash and let it hang, or... use your imagination. I have tested the buzzer I have to 14.1 volt and it is fine and very ear piercing, but won't be that bad under the dash, but you would hear it!

The buzzer has a working voltage of 3-14V so it is absolutely fine for auto use. After all, the battery is about max 12.8 volt when the motor is turned off. Here is a link to the buzzer on Jaycar:
http://www.jaycar.com.au/productView...Max=&SUBCATID=

I have three of them because I bought some stuff off a guy and he sent me these as a gift. I will post the other two for $4 each if anyone is interested?

The wiring diagram I couldn't find in the factory workshop manual.

The rest you sort of need to figure out yourself, such as finding the dash wiring for the headlight globe, but I will do it over the next few days.

Any comments/questions?

[Pub247]

Um yeah don't calais only have the warning light?

[craigvk]

Do they? Aren't I lucky! Ok, maybe then it's only useful for the Calais'.

[Pub247]

its a top idea i had a warning noise and my 929 and it saved me many a flat battery, also told me when i left the keys in the ignition you should try to do one for that

[craigvk]

There is a Silicon Chip headlight reminder project that goes much further into detail, but I figured if you only need a buzzer, it's pretty damn cheap! If the normal VK's don't have that indicator globe then.. oh well. There is still plenty of Calais' around so I'll be installing mine soon.

[vkberlina]

What I did with my headlights on my VK was to wire in 2 relays for the headlights, then I diverted the power in on my headlight switch to come in from my ignition.

The end result is when I turn the ignition off lights go off, they work when the ignition is on or on accessories.

cheers
Scott

[craigvk]

Thanks for that idea Scott. You wouldn't need the relays to make that work, but I did add relays to stop everything getting hot i.e: too much current draw. Do you mean instead of using the existing +12v at the headlight switch, use the +12v from the igition switch? That would work well.

[vkberlina]

I installed the relays for 2 reasons
To get rid of the current loss I was experiencing
To take the current load off the headlight switch

Yeah I took 12+ from the ignition switch so when the car is off the lights are off.

cheers
Scott

[craigvk]

Yeah. I did it to make my lights brighter. Actually, I went from a 2 volt drop at the headlights to a 200mV drop! It was that bad. It wasn't until later I found out everyones switches and fuse rails were melting. I can't believe Holden didn't think of adding headlight relays...

[vkberlina]

A little know option of the VKs BT1 & SS for 100w Quartz halogen conversion, part number SP3448. So the ability to add relays was from factory just no one ever bothered it took yeahs before things started playing up and melting
Yeah my headlights were about the same, when I installed my brand new fuse box I wanted to be certain it would never melt to I used relays for my lights

cheers
Scott

[craigvk]

Are you using a standard VK Berlina dash for your VK project?