Electrical guru’s help me out.

4x4dually said:
You'd be warshin' yer clothes in the river and eatin' fried possum in the candle light if it weren't for electricity. :D
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Sounds like a good weekend.

The whole electricity thing boils down to this for me. You can't see the stuff until it's too late and it starts smelling bad, smoking, and burning stuff up.
 
Haha I definitely don’t hate it. My ass needs AC more than oxygen I think. It is difficult and requires a different style of thinking than mechanical in my experience. In aviation the avionics guys handle most of the wires so I just didn’t pay as much attention to it as I should have.

I’m older now and like to learn new tricks, but my brain ain’t ever gonna work like Jory’s on this stuff hahah I’m with Jeff. I can get by, but my eyes go crossed if I tried to lay it all out in my head.

Jory, thanks again for spending part of your day worrying with this petty shit ha. You should try fried opossum by candle light though.

I’ll check that kit out now and see what sense I can make of it.
 
Snedge said:
Technically, I don't hate, but it's frustrating
I know my way around a multimeter, but I'll take a coolant, air, fuel or oil leak over those asshole voltage leaks. I can't tell you how many jobs come down to a five minute fix after several hours, or days of troubleshooting.
In a perfect world, with everything laid out in front of you it's a damn simple process to trace circuits, but wrap a truck in miles of wire, loomed up by robots, and then multiplex everything from engine controls to the marker lights.... Shit man, I was pissed when metric became a thing, and doubled the size of our tool boxes.
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quite accurate..dont hate it..just not fond of working on it..i can..why im a mechanic welder guy not electrician
 
Good thing about washing your clothes in the river is not having to take them off, and kills two birds. Bath and laundry.
 
I hear ya. The thing is, the way they design the schidt. There are waaaaay too many single points of failure. The self diagnosis is basically shit. And they mount sensitive electronics right to the engine block for craps sake!!! WTF is that all about? We perform 48 hour elevated burn-in testing on everything we design and build before it goes out the door to find infant mortality failures....these assholes put their ECMs in elevated burn-in for EVERY mile the truck is driven!!!! Dumb as a bag of hammers. I get it....pre-installed, engine in a crate, upbox and stab it.....just make an extension and mount the ECM in the cab. How hard could it be?
 
4x4dually said:
just make an extension and mount the ECM in the cab. How hard could it be?
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I believe there is a line of common sense that design engineers are forbidden to cross.
I'm sure the equipment your company provides for the USN has so much redundancy built in that complete failure is practically impossible for obvious reasons. In other words, it's got to be gremlin free.
In our world, it feels like the end user (owners, equipment operators, and technicians) are used as guinea pigs. Ship it, sell it, cross your fingers. We are tasked with chasing gremlins on equipment that works in theory, and then provide feedback through warranty channels for product improvement.
 
Snedge said:
I believe there is a line of common sense that design engineers are forbidden to cross.
I'm sure the equipment your company provides for the USN has so much redundancy built in that complete failure is practically impossible for obvious reasons. In other words, it's got to be gremlin free.
In our world, it feels like the end user (owners, equipment operators, and technicians) are used as guinea pigs. Ship it, sell it, cross your fingers. We are tasked with chasing gremlins on equipment that works in theory, and then provide feedback through warranty channels for product improvement.
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We have our gremlins....just not as many. Most everything has a back-up for a back-up. Lives are at stake. You know the drill. The line of common sense should be taught in school. The main design factors I try to review in my head every time we design something are :Availability of parts, are parts affordable, is it easy for our assemblers to build, is it easy to test, is it easy to diagnose, are the components accessible for replacement on a rockin' ship, is it safe to use, etc. It should be no damn different for ANYTHING anyone builds INCLUDING the idiot automotive industry.

Fuel pumps should be inside the frame rail. Not in tanks. Not buried in the engine compartments. Should there be a drain where you can drain the lines into a bucket before you take all the fittings loose? Yes.

Just common sense crap man.
 
After much time spent beating my head on my desk thinking this should be possible with relays, I had an epiphany! Buy a 3-to-2 wire brake light converter and just connect the brake wire input (red) to your running light wire. Then tie in your turn signals. Boom. One box and it should do exactly what you want.

Run the turn signal wires out of the box to each mirror. Disregard the Tail light brown wire out of the box. Done. Your mirror lights will flash and be on constant at the same brightness. Typically, running lights would go through a resistor to dim them so the flashers would be brighter. No need really.

https://www.amazon.com/MECMO-Multi-Function-Compatible-Converter-Separate/dp/B0B2PK4T7T/ref=sr_1_22?keywords=tail+light+converter

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bateman said:
Awesome! Nice work. I’ll get one on the way.
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An engineer with common sense, yeah he's a rare one, and a good guy to boot. Unlike me, if my mirrors quit blinking, I'd be like, Pffft fuck 'em, so it goes with-out saying how much I'd care about someone else's mirrors.
 
So truck park lamp to brake input. Truck turn signals to turn signal input.

Turn signal output to mirrors. Do I got it right or still retarded? Haha
 
Snedge said:
An engineer with common sense, yeah he's a rare one, and a good guy to boot. Unlike me, if my mirrors quit blinking, I'd be like, Pffft fuck 'em, so it goes with-out saying how much I'd care about someone else's mirrors.
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Yep. I totally thought about trading for ones without lights. More my style anyways. Figured this might be easier than removing and swapping mirrors. Luckily, we got a guy like Jory around here. I wasn’t going to put his name in the thread title but we all knew who would be the one to figure it out if it was possible haha
 
Man, I’ve been out of the motorcycle business longer than I thought. There used to be a company, Sound Off Safety (SOS) that made a box that made the rear turn signals work as brake lights as well as turn signals. It sold for @ $15. I can’t find the company or a similar product anywhere on the web.

Jory’s solution brought it to mind. It would’ve worked perfectly for this project, too.
 
bateman said:
So truck park lamp to brake input. Truck turn signals to turn signal input.

Turn signal output to mirrors. Do I got it right or still retarded? Haha
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I think you got it. I see no reason it wouldn't work as expected.

Just picture your leds as the high wattage element in an 1157 bulb. It comes on when brakes are pushed then flashes when turn signals are enables no matter what the brake is doing. That's exactly what you want here just swap running lights for brakes on the input. I think it will work. I can't see any reason it won't. Good luck!

I sat here and manipulated a few relays and just could not make it work. Even called another engineer down here and said "this is STUPIDly simple but I can't figure it out and it is pissin' me off!" We started making logic diagrams on the white board then it hit me like a wrecking ball. I said "wait.....just wait....google....3-to-2 wire converter....and there it was. Work smarter not harder! :hehe: Still makes me mad I can't figure out how to do it with relays. I can get it to work but there is always one situation where it won't. It is was an incandescent bulb I can make it work. But since it's an LED and is polarized, I can't reverse the current flow and make it work for all situations.

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Hahaha I am truly impressed with the effort. I guess it’s similar to me trying to fix my buddy’s boat engine. Gave me fits and kept me up at night. I might get beat, but I gotta put up a fight.

Thanks again man. If we cross paths one day the bourbon is on me.
 
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