Well the 140 mph thing was just an attention grabber..

I was really wondering how exactly the headlight motors function electronically. We have a seperate switch to help the headlights stay in the upright position even if the lights are off.. How does this work.? I thought that the power from the 12V source was keeping the motor in the upright position, I guess I am wrong... How does the motor actually work?

I was thinking of adding an inline timer on the "aux" switch so that it would cut the power to the motor at a desired "time" / "height". But this will only work if the motor isn't help in place by the 12V.. I am building a set of dual pod headlamps, and have a set of the mechanical fulcrums but they are finicly and are welded... I would rather limit the stroke electronically then having to rip the whole assembly apart.. especially if someday I get around to selling the kits.

If anyone has any helpfull hints please let me know..

 

Its just a rotating electric motor on an excentricly mounted ball.. It draws a **** load of amperage but only when on. It is only on when the lights are moving. Otherwise the Arm and bushing system holds the lights up by themselfs. There is 2 arms I (A arm) (B arm) I think. And when up they rotate and lock past so the angle inbeween then is < 180 degress. When lowerd they pinch together like sizzors and the angle is raised to >180 degrees and the weight of the system and resistance of rotation prefents it from moving.

To Address you question. Yes that is called a sleepy eye switch. What people do is they cut power 1/2 way through the rotation of the Motor. You would have to Directly wire the switch to a 12 volt sorce and the lights, remeber that the polarity reverses when you want the lights to go down.

Your best bet is to **** around with a 12volt sorce and a cuple cables. Perhaps wire up a 555IC timer and a relay. Maybe even get them to "blink" every once and a while... JK. It would have to be hardwired because the Mazda system will "force" the motor to run untill lights are fully extended.

What happond to me a few years back is one of the arms fell off and wedged against the frame. The motor continued to draw charge untill the battary died. I was fucked in the middle of know where. But hey looks better then the Early MGBs lights hey.

Goodluck and keep my posted on your progress

 

That is the major question though, how do you cut the power halfway though the stroke every time in the exact same position? Does the mazda motor use a proximity switch to know when it is up or down?

 

You can just apply voltage for a certain length of time and it should just stop when it stops getting power. Notice all the leads on the headlight motor connection. Find Pos and Gnd and just mess with thoes.

 

Hmmm...I've never heard anyone complain about the "early" MGB lights...all MGB's headlights looked the same during their entire production run, from 1963 - 1980.

I really think you'd be better off rigging up a small switch activated by a tab mounted somewhere on the headlight mechanisms. Of course this would have to be hooked up somehow so that it wouldn't prevent them from reversing and going down. I haven't looked at them so I'm not sure right off hand how you'd do that.

Good luck!

Rich

 

Maybe he's thinking of the frogeye sprites.

 

Yea, could be...they were pretty goofy.

 

It is all done with timers ... you will need to buy a timer (an adjustable one would prob be better since you wouldn't exactly know how high/low you'd like it) then play around with that ... or a cheaper way of doing it ... you could hook up another switch to disconnect the power to it manually. For getting the ~same result everytime like this you could hook up a mini counter that attaches from the leads off the original switch so that when activated it would activate the counter.

 

Since electrical is not my forte, I would approach it from a mechanical aspect and change the lever and fulcrum points. That would result in consistant, repeatable results.

 

I already modified the fulcrum..... But It takes a lot of work, so i was thinking that in the future lectronically would be the way to go.

 

I would find out what cuts the motor off. There's got to be a switch/relay to tell the motor when to cut off when the headlight is either up or down. Leave the down side where it's at, and somehow move the up switch to stop the motor half way up. Both sides equal distances = repeatable results.

 

yeah or you can just buy a Pivot headlight controller. Its got an adjustable dial to set the percentage open your headlights are. I think its something like 80$

 

You are tackling a difficult problem, and some here don't seem to appreciate how critical the angle is for proper headlight aiming. Your hair will be as grey as mine by the time you sort this out using timers. I rebuilt a lot of first gen RX-7s that were wrecked in the front, and saw some of these motors smashed beyond belief. But when we straightened out the backets and arms, they always worked. They seem to be bulletproof. I have never replaced one. Finally hauled about a dozen of these motors to scrap a few years ago from the cars we have scrapped.


My opinion is you should let the motors run to their normal position and change the length and geometry of the drive arms. Otherwise, you may open a real can of worms. I started out to do this years ago, but never quite followed through.

If you search this forum you will find somewhere photos of cars that have done this, but I never read any explanation.

Someone earlier may have been referring to the early Lotus cars, that did this with a vacuum cylinder. The Mercury Cougars moved their headlight covers this way, and some of the Italians also. We have a 1970 Cougar, and if it sits for a week or so, the headlight covers gradually creep open. Soon as the engine starts they close.

 

lol i was think that when hit 140 the headlights popped up

 

http://www.google.com/search?hl=en&q...=Google+Search

 

The problem with this is the fact of how it works. The headlights are on a 4 wire system. Here is a list of what the wires do:

One wire is ground.
One wire is basically the "time" wire. This wire is only powered when the headlight is moving up OR down.
The other 2 wires - They only power up when the headlight is moving EITHER up or down. 1 is for up, and the other is for down.

The "time" wire goes from the driver side and jumps over to the passenger side via a very small gauge wire. You would need to tap your new "time" wire into the larger gauge "time" wire on the driver side headlight motor plug. Its easy to find the time wire, as it is the only wire on the driver side headlihgt motor plug with 2 wires sticking out of 1 location (on the plug).

Note: I have not personally done this (the lazy headlight mod) but I have helped out another person with a headlight issue, and this is what I found out. Hope I helped some.