Guide: How to fit coming home/auto lights

Post Instructions on DIY modifications here - use all information with caution!
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TriggerFish
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Location: Aylesbury, Bucks Drives: Polo GTi, 330d 'M-Sport'

Guide: How to fit coming home/auto lights

Post by TriggerFish »

Normal disclaimer stuff first. If you blow yourself/car/house/whatever up, it's not my fault. I take no responsibility for anything that breaks or goes wrong. I tried this on my car, and it works, but there's no guarantee it'll be the same on yours (although it should be if it's a 6n2).

Anyway, below is how to fit coming home/auto lights to your Polo.

What are coming home lights I here you ask. Well, they're when the lights stay on for a period of time after leaving the car so that you are guided up the garden path and into the front door where your wonderful partner is waiting for you with dinner ready. Well, they light stuff up after leaving the car anyway! Also useful for finding the car in carparks/country side.

When done, you'll end up with something like this:

Image

Lights that come on when the car is unlocked/off when it's locked. This only happens when it's dark, not in the day time!

What to do:

1. Get down to Maplins and order one of these*: http://www.maplin.co.uk/light-sensitive ... -kit-28574 While you're there, you'll also need wire. Enough to go up the A pillar 4 times, and across to the interior light twice + some extra. 5 meters should be enough, but I'd get a bit more to allow for mistakes. Learn from my mistakes and try and get two colours so you can tell + and - apart easily!
* There are 2 styles, one has a 14pin chip like the one linked, the other 8. DON'T get the 8 pin one - it works backwards and turns them on in the day/off at night!

2. Solder the above. Pretty simple to do, just takes a steady hand a little time. If you can get a clamp to hold it then good, as you're often needing a 3rd/4th hand. Don't connect the sensor though - just put a length of wire in place so it can be connected later. You should end up with this:

Image

3. Connect enough wire to go down the A pillar to the ends of the LDR. Wrap these so they can't touch each other.

Image

4.I started by getting the power down from the interior light/placing the sensor. Run two wires up the A pillar to the interior light. I found this easiest by removing the sun visor/grab handle and moving the headliner slightly. Connect these into the positive and negative wires on the light fitting. Check this first, but I think they were red=positive and brown/white=negative. Bring the other end of these out down by the fuse box. Leave enough slack for these wires to reach the floor of the car.

5. Before replacing the A pillar trim place the sensor and run it's wires down to by the fuse box too. I hid mine here:

Image

Image

Replace the A pillar trim.

6. Wire the power into the PCB. My soldering iron was too weak too work in the cold, so I wired a lead onto the terminals inside, then crimped them to the other wires outside. Do the same to connect the sensor in.

Now check the circuit is working as it should. The red LED should come on with the interior light, as long as it's dark enough to trigger the circuit. This can be changed by turning the top of the potentiometer. Ideally you'll also test the NO and COM ports on the output create a circuit. Test with a multimeter.

7. Now to get the connections for the lights. I went for the side, number plate and dim beam lights. If you use the dip/main beam/fog then you'll need an extra relay as the PCB can only take 60watts on it's own. If you want to exceed 60 watts, you'll need a 12V 30/40Amp Relay - £3-4 off eBay. Make the wires at least 6 inches long. I have them a maximum of 4 inches and it's much too short!

Pins on the back of the light switch are as follows:

13 - passenger side light (10w)
14 - drivers side light (10w)
7 - xenon/main beam (55w)
16 - no plate lights (10w)
Total watts = 85w. 55 of those go to the relay = 30watt load on the PCB.

The fog lights can be done too, but I forgot to write those down. To test, stick a bit of wire onto pin 15 and go through the other pins 'til the lights come on. DO NOT insert it into pin 10 - this is a negative and created a lot of smoke and heat when I did it!

8. Now we're ready to wire the lights into the PCB. Take a feed from pin 15 on the light switch to the COM (middle) output on the PCB. (If you need to use an extra relay, you'll need to split this to go to the relay as well.)

9. Plug the wires from the lights you want into the NO (normally open) port on the PCB. If you're using a relay, take the wire for the most powerful feed to this, NOT the PCB. (So in short, make sure the wires you've plugged into the PCB have less than a 60watt draw.)

If you're not using a relay, then you're now done. Just tidy it all away and revel in your handy-work. Now just push all the wires safely away.

If you are using a relay, take a feed from the PCB and run it to pin 86 on the relay. Pin 87 goes to the light switch. Power goes into pin 30, 85 is earth/negative. This could go to an earthing point on the chassis or the negative feed to the PCB. I used the latter.

Now you're done too.

A very bad wiring diagram is below:

Image

If you want, you can take an extra power feed from the ignition live (pin 1 or 2 should work) to the PCB to give auto-lights for when you're driving along. If you do this, you'll want a diode to stop power going from the PCB to the car.

It's worth setting the light/dark level with the potentiometer when it gets to the right time of day, then removing the stalk from the pot so it doesn't get caught on stuff/take up as much room.

My biggest issue I encountered was that the length of wires were too short, and I was running out of space to hide it all under the dash as I had to keep it so close together. See below:

Image

(Yes, I know it's messy, but it has been neatened since then!)

Known 'issues'

It mimics the interior light, so opening a door can turn the lights on (I drive with mine always on, so not an issue).

The lights on beep will sound when you get into/out of the car with when it's dark.



Hopefully all of that makes sense - my explanations often suck though so. . .

If you have any questions or anything, lemme know. :)
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neilGTI
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Re: Guide: How to fit coming home/auto lights

Post by neilGTI »

Would really love to try this on mine, auto lights sounds great as well.

Maybe something to try out in the summer when its a little warmer :lol:
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neilGTI
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Re: Guide: How to fit coming home/auto lights

Post by neilGTI »

Thinking about this, could you not use a light switch with the auto setting like here: http://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/VW-GOLF-MK5-A ... 500wt_1156

Then switch it all off if you dont want the feature activated ? (for auto lights mainly)
TriggerFish
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Location: Aylesbury, Bucks Drives: Polo GTi, 330d 'M-Sport'

Re: Guide: How to fit coming home/auto lights

Post by TriggerFish »

I could be misunderstanding, but that will need extra control stuff to work, it wont just plug in and give you auto lights, but I assume that's not what you mean!

I'd guess you could, if you knew how the switch was wired, and if it had the right pin outs for the existing setup, otherwise you would need to rewire the connector on the polo loom.
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Dom.
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Re: Guide: How to fit coming home/auto lights

Post by Dom. »

Good guide bud, nice one.
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6N2 GTI 00
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Re: Guide: How to fit coming home/auto lights

Post by 6N2 GTI 00 »

Great Guide! Just moved it to the right section
TriggerFish
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Posts: 310
Joined: Wed Jan 20, 2010 9:12 pm
Location: Aylesbury, Bucks Drives: Polo GTi, 330d 'M-Sport'

Re: Guide: How to fit coming home/auto lights

Post by TriggerFish »

6N2 GTI 00 wrote:Just moved it to the right section
Sorry!
:oops:
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Bradley
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Re: Guide: How to fit coming home/auto lights

Post by Bradley »

Good guide dude,have often thought of wiring up something simular using some components from work but i don't want to butcher the loom too much.Good effort and the write ups not as bad as you think i can pretty much understand everything you did.
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