Dcal
Member
- Messages
- 3,840
- Location
- Antrim Northern Ireland
This should maybe be in the car section but anyway -
I’m putting my alfa back together and fixing the electrical gremlins as they appear. (There are lots)
The one electric window motor I connected didn't work so I checked a few things and even took the switch apart but it looked ok.
I found the problem was in a connector block breaking down under load.
There are lods of pin connector blocks, is there a way of improving the connections without replacing everything?
Anyway I fixed (cleaned) that duff connector and it worked but the motor was dead slow. It was also pulling 13amps!
I had greased the regulator before I rebuilt the door and it seemed to be working fine on the bench but I pulled it completely apart, cleaned and greased everything in the mechanism with silicone grease.
I even pulled the motor apart to see what condition it was in but it all look good, I didn’t even need to clean the commutator.
So I rebuilt everything and when I reinstalled it, it worked great and pulled 5.5 amps dropping the window and 6.5 raising it. It was also far quicker in operation.
Does 5 or 6 amps sound about right?
It pulled about 3.5 amps on the bench when installed in the regulator.
While looking for the fault I ran a couple of 6mm2 wires from the battery direct to the motor and it did help a lot, however now they are working better the difference in shorting out the switch and wiring is minimal.
So job done?
Well the issue I have is this is a 25 year old Italian car and the switches are no longer available.
The only switch I found was in America and it was over $70 but they wanted $200 for postage.
I want to install relays to take the load off the switches and hopefully help preserve them.
I need a relay on the live and return and think I could do it with 2 change over relays but is there a better way of doing this?
There are only motors on the fronts regulators so a few relays is no big deal but I would also like to put relays on the sunroof as well and there is less room there.
Any ideas?
Thanks
I’m putting my alfa back together and fixing the electrical gremlins as they appear. (There are lots)
The one electric window motor I connected didn't work so I checked a few things and even took the switch apart but it looked ok.
I found the problem was in a connector block breaking down under load.
There are lods of pin connector blocks, is there a way of improving the connections without replacing everything?
Anyway I fixed (cleaned) that duff connector and it worked but the motor was dead slow. It was also pulling 13amps!
I had greased the regulator before I rebuilt the door and it seemed to be working fine on the bench but I pulled it completely apart, cleaned and greased everything in the mechanism with silicone grease.
I even pulled the motor apart to see what condition it was in but it all look good, I didn’t even need to clean the commutator.
So I rebuilt everything and when I reinstalled it, it worked great and pulled 5.5 amps dropping the window and 6.5 raising it. It was also far quicker in operation.
Does 5 or 6 amps sound about right?
It pulled about 3.5 amps on the bench when installed in the regulator.
While looking for the fault I ran a couple of 6mm2 wires from the battery direct to the motor and it did help a lot, however now they are working better the difference in shorting out the switch and wiring is minimal.
So job done?
Well the issue I have is this is a 25 year old Italian car and the switches are no longer available.
The only switch I found was in America and it was over $70 but they wanted $200 for postage.
I want to install relays to take the load off the switches and hopefully help preserve them.
I need a relay on the live and return and think I could do it with 2 change over relays but is there a better way of doing this?
There are only motors on the fronts regulators so a few relays is no big deal but I would also like to put relays on the sunroof as well and there is less room there.
Any ideas?
Thanks