Side Mirror Turn Signal Light Modification

Has any thought of or made modifications to have the mirror turn signal lights come on with the parking lights?

This could probably be done with a SPDT relay for each mirror using N.C. contacts that would be connected between positive side of the signal light and power from the parking light circuit. The N.O. contacts would be connected between the positive side of the signal light and the DTRL circuit. The relay coil would be tied in with the flasher circuit. Since both the parking lights and the DTRL can not be on at the same time, the relay will definitely turn the signal bulb on and off as it will be alternating between a powered wire and an unpowered wire. The only difference will be that the mirror signals will be out of phase with the other signals when the parking lights are on.

With the parking lights on the signal lights would also be on.

With the parking light on and when the turn signal is flashing, the relay would turn on and off and flash the light in the mirror "out of phase" (opposite of) the turn signals at the front and back of the truck.

With the parking lights off, and the turn signal flashing, the mirror signals would flash "in phase" with the other turn signals.

This seems possible. I was just wondering if anyone had thought about it or done this before.

 

Well.....I guess no one has done this.....YET

I will be trying this out soon. Write-up to come if I am successful.

 

I was looking into installing some behind mirror signals and tying them into the wiring I thought would be there for the TRD sport models.

Somebody said the wiring might not be there which I believe because even half of my engine bay fuse block is empty.

But if there is wiring there, it's an empty terminal on the plug already connected to the wiring and flashers.

 

I already have the signals on the mirrors. I'm just planning to modify how they work. I figure I can add a couple of small 12 vdc relays to make my mod work.

 

I came up with a circuit for it a while back... lemme see if I can find it.

 

Cool. I already have a plan for the wiring. If you have wire designations/colors that would save me a lot of time but then I suppose I wouldn't have nearly as much fun.

I like my lights but I don't think I'll be happy until I can make the fog lights retract so I can launch missiles out of the front bumper

 

This isn't the one I was thinking of... this one is older and designed for motorcycles to add running lights to the rear turn signals or to convert from a 3-wire 1157 circuit to a 2-wire LED (like I said, it's old)

Should work. They will be on dimmer as running lights and brighten to full as turn signals.

 

That's cool, but I'm doing something a bit different. I'm going to be able to have the lights in the mirrors on all the time whenever the parking lights are on. If the turn signals are active, the light will blink, only out of phase from the way they normally would. With the parking lights off, and the turn signals active, the lights in the mirrors will blink the way they normally do. It'll be pretty easy. I just have to find a place to tap into the running light and parking light circuit then add a relay to each mirror.

 

sub'd for outcome

 

Turn signals are on pins 4 and 11 of the connector on the left side of the fuse panel.



Aaand here we go....
Two circuits required... this shows only one side.

 

When both lights are dark, both relays connect the mirror light to 87a (ground)
When both lights are on, both relays connect the mirror light to 87 (hot)
In both cases, the mirror light will be dark.
When one is on and one is off, the mirror will be connected to 87 on one relay and 87a on the other.

It will not work with polarity-sensitive LEDs in the mirror, though you could insert a full wave bridge rectifier between the relays and the mirror and then the mirror would always see "+" on one wire and "-" on the other.

 

Thanks for the wire locations !!!

This is a little more complicated than what I am going to do. I'm only going to use one SPDT relay which is not a standard automotive relay. I'll be sure to do a full write-up when I get done.

 

Ok,

So it turns out that the above wire locations are NOT for a 2012. But that's not a problem, I went ahead and read out what wires do what and so on. I have successfully completed my modification and will be posting the details shortly. It's late and I'm tired. Too much steak and beer

 

Ok, I finally got around to drawing the circuit for this so it is readable. You might need to blow it up a bit.



This modification will regrettably require cutting at least 2 wires. I cut 2 additional wires because I hate quick tap splices. This mod also requires some basic soldering skills and general electrical know-how.

The parts I used for this were obtained from Radio Shack because it was a holiday weekend and my favorite electronics parts store was closed.

Qty. 3 275-0243 DPDT Miniature PC Relays
Qty. 1 276-0149 General Purpose Printed Circuit Board
Qty. 8 Insulated male and female spade connectors.

After I drew out the circuit, I soldered the 3 relays to the circuit board with space between them to solder jumper wires. I added a second purple wire after I took this picture but it connects to the same point as the other purple wire.



This is the fuse panel behind the coin tray. The yellow arrow shows the plug with the wires you will need to cut. If you use quick taps, you only need to cut the Pink and Blue wires shown on the diagram.



Before you cut any wires, make sure you have plenty of room to strip the wire and crimp spade connectors. You may need to cut back some of the electrical tape on the wires to give you enough length to work with. You will want to use a male spade connector on one end of the wire you cut and a female connector on the other end. This will allow you to easily undo this modification by simply connecting the cut wires back together. I went ahead and cut the Green wire to avoid using the quick taps. I installed male and female spade connectors on these as well.



The Pink wire from the plug will go to the coil of the relay for the left turn signal. The pink wire from the harness will go to the common contact of the left turn signal relay

The Blue wire from the Plug will go to the coil of the relay for the right turn signal. The Blue wire from the harness will go to the common contact of the right turn signal relay.

The Light Blue wire, on the plug below this (with 3 wires) has +12 all the time. This needs to go to the common contacts of both poles of the center relay. This was originally shown on the diagram as a Red/Green wire which actually goes to the horn...oops!

The Green wire will go to the coil of the center relay and will turn it on when the parking lights are on.

Lastly, the other coil wires for all 3 relays will go to ground. I simply connected this to a screw under the dash that was in a convenient spot.



I mounted the board to the front of the fuse panel with 3M foam tape and tucked the wires in neatly after testing everything.



The way this works is:

When the lights are off, the turn signal wires that would normally power the lights in the mirrors now power the 2 relay coils which send +12v from the Light Blue wire to the signal lights through the normally open contacts. The turn signals work normally because when the coil energizes, the contacts close.

When the lights are on, the center relay in on. This sends +12v through the normally closed contact of the 2 turn signal relays and turns the mirror lights on all the time until the signals are activated. When a turn signal is activated, the turn signal relay turns on opening the normally closed contacts and removing the +12 briefly. This of course makes the lights blink, but "out of phase" from the front and rear signals.

I have tried to make this as simple as possible to follow. I anyone has any questions, I will be happy to help.

 

Clean circuit.

I drew mine using two relays because I was considering mounting the relays in the doors, so I wanted everything to be self-contained.

 

Thanks.

I had considered having things self contained in the doors, but I didn't want to have to run wires anywhere. I like the idea of having everything in a central location. Its easier to un-modify too.

I didn't really need the DPDT relays for the turn signals themselves. I could have used a SPDT for each instead, but this way I have an extra set of contacts in case I want to have something else flash.... Maybe the side markers or the LED strips above the headlights.

 

This mod is very nice, but these two sentences are confusing me. Are they correct?

My truck has the pink wire in the left door for the left mirror signal and the blue wire in the right door for the right mirror signal, but the other ends are not connected to the plug in the fuse box like yours are. Those two spots in the connector are empty. Do you think the ends of the wires are just capped and wrapped up in that bundle of wires at the fuse box? Were else might they have been run? I guess I could just start cutting back the tape and see what I find (ugh, but what mess that would make ).

 

Thanks for proof reading this and pointing that out. I just edited that section of the post.

As far as where the missing wire might be..... who knows?

It is possible that because my truck is a "sport" that it cam pre wired with a "sport" harness which included the wiring for the mirrors. An Offroad or an SR5 might not have the same harness.

By the way, I will be making an addition and update to this mod soon. I found a way to insert an LED strip inside the clear lens on the mirror housing. I'll post pics and a full writ-up when I do the other side.

 

Any updates? I want to do this mod this weekend...

 

Actually, Yes.

Instead of using the Green/Red striped wire for the +12v, You should probably tap the light blue wire on the plug below it. This has +12V all the time and you might want to fuse it as well. Either this or find a +12v source fed from the ignition circuit. The Green/Red wire actually goes to the horn relay and could cause things to act a little crazy as I discovered.

I plan on rebuilding my circuit board with smaller relays for the turn signals as well as add a couple of other things.

I will be making an addition to this mod which involves inserting an LED strip in the mirror lens. I have already done this to the driver's side as an experiment. Once I get my aftermarket mirror on the passenger side replaced with a factory mirror I'll do a write up on how to do that.

(My passenger side factory mirror was replaced with a piece of crap aftermarket mirror about a year ago so I yelled at my insurance company and they will be replacing it Tuesday)