Lights stay on on unlock?

[bawachhe]

Hi all.

I was wondering if there was some factory (or possibly hacked together) way of turning on e.g. the parking lights when the car gets unlocked, like in newer vehicles we see these days. I live in a place without street lighting and so sometimes it's hard to see the car (I have to kind of extrapolate where it is based on when it last flashed when I unlocked it). I am looking for a basically free or very cheap way to do this, otherwise I'm not interested; and I thought asking here would be as good as anyplace.

Seems like it wouldn't be too bad to hack it together even if the ECU doesn't have that as a virtual switch that Toyota techs might be able to flip.

 

[MONTYMTB]

Do your interior lights not come on when you unlock it?
I see where you've converted the interior to LED, is that not bright enough for you?

 

[bawachhe]

No it's not about my interior lights. I'm talking the parking lights/tail lights/DRLs etc. outside the vehicle.

 

[bawachhe]

Bump..

Nobody has any ideas here?
Maybe does [MENTION=66389]BlackWorksInc[/MENTION] have some insider knowledge?..

To reiterate, I want to find a way to basically have the parking lights turn/stay on automatically when I unlock the car, like most american vehicles might, until the car is either locked or started or something like that.

 

[BlackWorksInc]

Why would you want that? It sounds like if you accidentally unlocked your vehicle by the keys jumbling around in your pocket the battery would die before you realized it.

I don't think Toyota has a function like that for the 4th gens (or any or of our newer vehicles that I know of) but you can set the lights to blink on/off when you lock/unlock the vehicle and there is a timer that automatically locks the vehicle after a certain amount of inactivity (in case you did accidentally unlock the vehicle.) Something like that sounds like it might be doable through a 3rd party set-up.

 

[Dylan]

I don't think Toyota has a function like that for the 4th gens (or any or of our newer vehicles that I know of) but you can set the lights to blink on/off when you lock/unlock the vehicle and there is a timer that automatically locks the vehicle after a certain amount of inactivity (in case you did accidentally unlock the vehicle.) Something like that sounds like it might be doable through a 3rd party set-up.

Yeah, I figured all 4th gens did this. My parking lights blink once for lock, and twice for unlock when I use the key fob. As you said, the car will lock again if you don't open a door soon enough after hitting unlock...seems to be about 20 seconds. Is there a feature to toggle this on and off though?

OP, like [MENTION=66389]BlackWorksInc[/MENTION] said, it may not be a good idea to have such a feature like you mentioned...although I can appreciate what you're saying and how it would help. The only other thing I can think of is the Map light mod. You may have already done it, but when I converted all of my interior lights to LED, I had it set so that Map lights, dome lights and the cargo dome lights all turn on. Not sure about yours, but my LEDs light up the surrounding area around the car within a 5 ft radius just from those interior lights. Then again, I dont have any limo tint or anything.

 

[bawachhe]

After doing some research with the electrical wiring diagram, I am going to make a mod for this, which briefly will involve tying another relay in parallel with the dome relay that will activate the fog lights, and the reverse lights. This is a similar function to how many newer GM cars and luxury brands work these days.

The first is easy enough because I just need to tie the relay "output" to the "output" pins on the fog light relay in parallel, so that they can be turned on either normally or by this mod when the car is unlocked.

The reverse lights are tricky because I'll need to cut the wire going to them and inline a diode so that the power won't backflow and make the car's ECU think the car's in reverse or something like that, but after that it's just adding another (or the same) relay with one side of its switch connected to hopefully the TAIL (or whatever fuses the reverse lights; gotta confirm that with the EWD) fuse's +12ishV constant and the other on the reverse lights wire, after that diode.

I was thinking of parking lights as well; we'll see.

This mod is not terribly complicated in theory, and as you might have noticed, it's controlled by the dome relay, so the lights won't stay on forever and kill the battery, and, being on a separate relay, it's also electrically isolated from the dome circuit but still uses the proper fuses for the fog and reverse lights.

I'll post back with how it goes if I end up trying it.

 

[BlackWorksInc]

Just make sure to calculate the required amperage of the circuits involved and get the appropriate rated relay. I would also consider making sure to keep circuits seperate from each other (i.e. the Foglamps are on a separate circuit than the headlamps even though they're triggered by the headlamps so you don't have any cross voltage mucking things up if something goes bad in your mod.)

 

[bawachhe]

Just make sure to calculate the required amperage of the circuits involved and get the appropriate rated relay. I would also consider making sure to keep circuits seperate from each other (i.e. the Foglamps are on a separate circuit than the headlamps even though they're triggered by the headlamps so you don't have any cross voltage mucking things up if something goes bad in your mod.)

Yeah, I was actually going to wire it so the main control relay draws off the dome relay for switch signal but it's "output", so to speak, is just connected to both sides of the fog relay, so the fog lights are still on the fog circuit. i was gonna also wire two others in parallel with that first control so one more controls the TAIL relay in the same way, and then the last one lights up the reverse lights. Although given the fact that the reverse lights aren't so bright anyway, I might have that last control some aftermarket aux reverse lights instead, which would make it easier anyway.

By the way, for the record, I tested the behavior of the DOME relay, which was going to be my control, and it stays engaged when the key's in or the car's on, so I need to add another SPST normally-closed (i.e. on without power, not the standard "normally open" or off without power) relay that switches and cuts power to this mod in its entirety when the key is turned so that it doesn't leave all those lights on permanently with me driving around.

Thanks BlackWorksInc for makin sure I wasn't gonna do something stupid :]

Edit: You could also get some standard SPDT relays for this (like I did because they were the cheapest best option on digikey), which depending on how you wire them, can function as normally open OR normally closed. Or switch power source or ground from one circuit to another. Fun times. The opportunities are endless! :]