At the moment I have my drls wired to an ignition live fuse in the engine bay, ignition comes on and DRL’s come on.

 

Now, I’d like for the DRL’s to come on when I unlock the car and I believe I can achieve this by wiring them to the sidelights as my sidelights come on when unlocking the car.

 

My question is, how do I achieve the above whilst still keeping the DRL’s on when I turn on the ignition? Is it as simple as 2 x 12v feeds.. one from the ignition live fuse and another from the sidelight 12v?

 

Any ideas, can’t wrap my head around it.

 

 

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First if all, you need wire them so that when you turn the headlights on, the DRL's turn off. That's a legal requirement and technically should fail your MOT if they don't. I'd be surprised if you don't get people flashing you at night time. It's pretty easy to do with the use of a relay and a few guides on here about it.

Sadly it's not just as easy as running 2 feeds. Doing so will mean your sidelights also stay powered when the ignition is on. You cant use a diode as you also don't want the drls on when the headlights turn on (sidelights are on at this stage).

Now my electrics are a little rusty and someone else may come up with a better or easier solution lol. You may be able to use a make/break relay using a permanent live, unlock signal to energise the relay (make) and lock signal to cut the power (break). The output of this relay will then be the feed for the second relay I mentioned above which is controlled by the headlights turning on.

You can have them to go on once the sidelights do but dim to 50% when the headlights are on that's my setup and passed many Mot's with a drl controller.  The mk3 I know what you want it's what I always wanted on the old MK2 to start drl on opening the doors. There must be a module to tap into in that respect as the lights work independant when you unlock. Somebody is bound to know. 

I’ll have to do some research, I basically want my car to wink at me when I unlock it lol!

If anyone else can chime in, please feel free! And thanks guys for the suggestions and what not!

Gonna research drl controllers and if you can get one with switched lives from 2 separate 12v sources.


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Think I may have potted lucky! Found on amazon something that may work the way I want it to. Confirming with seller as we speak

 

EDIT: so it looks like that these will work as intended, allows you to use the sidelights as a feed to power the DRL’s and obviously when you unlock your car the sidelights come on. This is perfect!

 

Now let’s order and see what happens, fingers crossed!!!!

 

 

 

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Good luck. Have you cracked open the headlights to add the drl's? 

Good luck. Have you cracked open the headlights to add the drl's? 

Not yet, not even had chance to ***** fit them led projector bulbs! Had all sorts going on!

Question - I’m sure in forscan you can enable a drl option... correct me if I’m wrong, doesn’t this fire 12v down one of the lines on the headlight harness? If so, which one? Or would mine even have this... or I could happily add the pin on the headlight connector on the headlight itself. Pretty sure the loom in the engine bay already would have the correct pin/wire. Guessing the headlight connector side of things would just be blank?

Don’t fancy having wires everything so when I crack open the headlights I want everything internal in the headlight if possible, and if I can use the factory headlight connector, winner!


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Another thought - if I put a one way diode between the sidelight positive and then the drl positive and then another diode from switched live (fuse box) to the drl positive.. am I right in thinking that it would only allow the current one way and would stop them interfering?

 

So then that goes on to the next question, two 12v sources in to the DRL positive, would that work or kill the drl? I always leave my lights on auto, if that makes any difference? With them set to auto, at what point would the sidelights actually come on? My thought is that with auto lights, dipped beam only or do the sidelights come on with dipped beam?

 

 

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43 minutes ago, Monks600 said:

Not yet, not even had chance to ***** fit them led projector bulbs! Had all sorts going on!

Question - I’m sure in forscan you can enable a drl option... correct me if I’m wrong, doesn’t this fire 12v down one of the lines on the headlight harness? If so, which one? Or would mine even have this... or I could happily add the pin on the headlight connector on the headlight itself. Pretty sure the loom in the engine bay already would have the correct pin/wire. Guessing the headlight connector side of things would just be blank?

Don’t fancy having wires everything so when I crack open the headlights I want everything internal in the headlight if possible, and if I can use the factory headlight connector, winner!


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I know you can buy the oem ford drl lights that use the same loom so there must be something there and yes activated with forscan. 

29 minutes ago, Monks600 said:

Another thought - if I put a one way diode between the sidelight positive and then the drl positive and then another diode from switched live (fuse box) to the drl positive.. am I right in thinking that it would only allow the current one way and would stop them interfering?

 

So then that goes on to the next question, two 12v sources in to the DRL positive, would that work or kill the drl? I always leave my lights on auto, if that makes any difference? With them set to auto, at what point would the sidelights actually come on? My thought is that with auto lights, dipped beam only or do the sidelights come on with dipped beam?

 

 

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You can try it not too sure on that one m8. The sides lights are defo on with dipped beam though. 

You can try it not too sure on that one m8. The sides lights are defo on with dipped beam though. 

Wait - that could work, wire the DRL’s to the sidelights but also have a wire going to the dipped beam so they dim.

When I unlock the car I get a cheeky wink and the DRL’s will still work as intended. Then the next problem would be, how to power them in the day when it’s not dark. So ideally, I need to find a pin/wire that is live on ignition but sidelights are off. And then when dipped beam is on, power comes from the sidelights but the wire/pin I need to find goes off.


Damn this is confusing. Hopefully that made some sort of sense haha.


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You would just turn on the side lights during the day should look ok. 

You would just turn on the side lights during the day should look ok. 

Hoping someone will be able to chime in and possibly describe a type of relay that may achieve this :)


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Unless you wire a separate switch to turn them on during the day but that's another kettle of fish 😂 

Unless you wire a separate swith to turn them on during the day but that's another kettle of fish [emoji23] 

Hahaha, aww don’t... really racking my head over this. Just reading up about all the different types of relays hoping something makes sense [emoji23]


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