Surprised I did not get any response to my question earlier; therefore, I will ask again. Did the series III US XJ6 ever have interior light delay?
Richard
1983 Xj6 VP
1986 XJ6 VP
Yes, but only early cars. I can’t remember when the feature was dropped. 1982-ish, perhaps?
Cheers
DD
Yes indeed, my 1986 Canadian spec VDP didn’t have interior light delay either…
Its not that hard to put one in if you want, you just tap the ground wire from the drivers door switch to drive the delay relay, and then the relay grounds the lights. There are many generic ones to choose from… or even make one…
I even managed to make the lights come on also when I unlock the doors !
Best,
Aristides
My 83 has no delay.
Carl
Aristides,
I wouldn’t mind trying to fit a delay to my car.
Could you give me a little more infomation on how you did this, please?
When it comes to electrics I’m pretty hopeless.
Dave
Dave,
Here it is:
Everything is located at left drivers foot well.
You need to find the black cable that goes to the drivers door switch.
Cut it and connect them to the relay.
You will need to find a permanent +12v to power the relay.
If you want the interior lights to light when you also unlock the door you need to locate the two wires that come from the drivers lock actuator (also at the foot well), orange red and orange something, find which one is ground when you unlock and connect it at the relay.
The Diode is necessary because these cables reverse polarity when you lock.
As for the delay relay I used one from an older XJ, but you can find a generic one like the one bellow, with adjustable delay.
It must have a negative / ground trigger though.
Hope that helps,
Aristides
My wife’s 1990 XJ-S convertible has the light delay feature on the interior dash lights, the door puddle lights and the rear interior lights that keeps them on for 10 seconds after getting into the car. It is a nice feature that I have been thinking about and will probably put into some of my Series III saloons but probably not anytime soon. The three attached pictures show the Red Lucas 33384 10 second Delay Relay (Jaguar part number DAC 2760) that makes the delay happen in this XJ-S. There are four pins in the relay, #1 is for the door switches, #2 goes to the lights, #3 is for the ground, and #4 is for 12V fused power supply. I believe this pretty much matches up with what Aristides provided in his drawing, although the XJ-S interior light arrangement is a little different than the Series III saloons.
Regards,
Paul M. Novak
1990 Series III V12 Vanden Plas
1990 XJ-S Classic Collection convertible
1987 XJ6 Vanden Plas
1984 XJ6 Vanden Plas
1969 E-Type FHC
1957 MK VIII Saloon
Ramona, CA USA
Yes, this is the relay I used.
Quite simple and works well.
Aristides
Good info in this thread.
Years ago…probably 16-18 years at least…I tried adding the delay to my '87 Series III but couldn’t make it work. I can’t remember the exact difficulty but I think I was on the wrong side of one of the factory installed diodes.
Anyhow, my interest has now been revitalized and I’ll add this mod to my ‘to do’ list on my '85 car.
Cheers and thanks
DD
Aristides and Paul,
Great info on the light delay. I just ordered the XJS relay off Ebay. I tried to search for the doide but couldn’t get a match. Would anyone have a spare or where I could get one? Our Radio Shack is gone!
Richard
I’ve noticed that the modern cars use an electronic delay that “fades” the lights at the end of the timeout rather than switching them off abruptly. Plus, the delayed off feature is aborted when the ignition is switched on. I surfed around and found some for sale, but I didn’t find one worth posting here (except an Australian one that seems NLA). Not sure if it’s worth it, but certainly reeks “au courant.”
Thanks for the drawing.
Something else I intend to do when I get the time.
For diodes on my car I have used these -
Dave
This was recently on another thread. Oh well.
An alternative solution is a keyless entry system with a dome light control. Only a couple more wires to install.
Ron
“Theater dimming”
I’ve have a vague recollection that some 80s vintage GM cars used a stand alone module for this. I suspect most cars nowadays have this feature controlled by the “Body Control Module”…which is generally a marvel of multi-tasking in one magic little box
Cheers
DD
You can use the little red box relays for lots of other tasks.
Appended is the circuit diagram which shows how it simply intercepts and uses the switch to ground (shown on the right). This powers the relay through the 12v supply and charges the capacitor, which holds the relay open as it then discharges itself after the switch becomes open again.
Simply changing the 22uF capacitor for something as big as 470uF will make the relay active for 3-4 minutes after the switch is reopened.
You can also rejig the output contacts to turn it into a changeover relay. In this example it is used to control a water pump (powered by the brown wire) post shutdown for 4 minutes.
kind regards
Marek
An alternative would be the 1N5402…
Any diode with a rating above 3A will do the job.
Aristides
Aristides
Yes indeed Robert !
In my 1986 V12 VDP there is a red SPDT relay under the drivers side under-scuttle, I think its called “Load Relay”.
It gets activated when ever the ignition is on, the 30 pin is always live, and the 87a pin was unused… i.e. its live only when the ignition is off and perfect to power the delay relay !
So now when I turn the ignition ON the interior lights turn OFF !
Having this set up I also put a bigger capacitor on the original delay relay to stay on longer, to about a minute or so…
Love it…
I’ve tried to make a fade relay, two different designs I found on the internet with my limited knowledge of electronics, but even though they worked perfectly on the bench with one light bulb, both didn’t work in the car, too many lights… Still have to work this out one day…
Marek, maybe you can give us a hint ?
Aristides
In the red box example, the lights are still being powered from the 12v supply, which remains roughly constant at “12v”. To make a filament bulb fade, you need to supply it with a diminishing supply voltage, e.g. from a large capacitor which discharges, rather than a huge battery which never does.
One way to achieve that would be to use the red box changeover relay but wire it so that the lights get their supply from the battery/alternator when running, but get their supply from an exhaustable supply when you switch off.
Failing that, you’ll have to design some fancy electronics to give you a dropping voltage supply once you switch off, e.g. by switching in bigger resistances in series with the supply as time goes by, the last being infinite resistance, or “disconnect”. It might not work well, as different bulbs will probably drop out at different times.
kind regards
Marek
What you want is a programmable power supply that transitions between battery voltage (call it 12V) and zero, along a ramp. The output voltage should not depend on the load.
The old-fashioned (analog) way to do this is with a series-pass voltage regulator–basically a transistor amplifier that multiplies current capacity but doesn’t change voltage. The input to the amp is derived from a discharging capacitor. Being on the input (low current) side of the amplifier, a reasonable sized capacitor can be used. To directly supply the interior lights with current from a discharging capacitor, its physical size would approach that of the car itself! This same idea can be used to control fans, etc and sometimes is. The main disadvantage is that the amplifier’s transistor must dissipate about the same power as the lights (or fans) themselves. This is very inefficient and requires heatsinking ( requiring a large physical size).
The modern (digital) method is to send pulses (say, 500/sec) of electricity to the interior lights (or fans or whatever)., The pulses vary in width. If they are very nearly 2 milliseconds wide, then the 12 volts is virtually continuous. If they are very narrow (or non-existent), then the effective average voltage is zero. The advantage is that the high-speed switching transistors used are either completely on (during the pulse) or completely off (between pulses). In the first case, the voltage drop across the transistor is close to zero–like relay contacts. So with zero resistance, there is zero power dissipation even with high current. In the second, the transistor is open-circuit. Now there is full voltage, but it is across infinite R. Again, no power dissipation in the transistor.
So these pulse width modulation, or PWM, control units can be very small.
Here’s an example: