Height adjustment on dipped beam

[S6PNJ]

While I was 'in my wings' this weekend sorting out an indicator problem, I did a bit of digging around as there was a black box near to my dipped beam headlamp unit and I wanted to see what it was. After I managed to get the light out of the wing, I found it was a motor connected to a 3 wire plug. On a 'normal' car (or originally on the wiring loom donor car) it would have been for controlling the height adjustment for when the car is laden etc. Has anyone else found this and managed to conenct it to a switch in the cabin? I'd like to connect it up if possible.

[R TOY]

V interesting. Would be usefull as tuscans notorious for blinding on-coming traffic.

[southgate]

They are remote headlamp adjusters but they arent used on the tuscan.
I think it'd be more hassle than its worth to install them to switch in the cabin. Just get an MOT garage to set them up properly and leave them!

[S6PNJ]

So the options are I could run wires to a switch but then doesn't the switch go through some form of processing? How does the motor know how much (or long) to turn for? If there are 3 wires, 1 is for earth, what are the other two for? They must be from some form of stepper motor control unit. Would this normally be part of the (donor) car's ECU or would there be a separate box? I can rip out bits from the local scrap yard but I need to know what to look for (or I could just rip apart the wife's car???) As you can tell, lots of questions and no answers, and I'd like to add it in if I can, that way I can set the light high for normal driving (best posn for lighting the road) and then switch them to the 'legal' setting for traffic (not best light for the road).

[grrrrr]

I would assume a two position switch on a car with rear seats.



one wire for...



...Position 1 - Driver only and car unladen (normal setting)



the other wire for...



...Position 2 - Car fully laden (lowest setting)



and GND.



You don't need any sort of processing, just a switch.



I wouldn't personally bother with this unless you consider fitting HID's. There are certain instances with HID's where you would need to lower the headlights to avoid blinding on-coming traffic. Examples would be left-hand bends and reaching the brow of a hill, so any sort of country road would cause other road users discomfort.

Edited by grrrrr on Wednesday 23 May 00:13