Stupid question: Was there ever a lamp on the door handle around the key hole? I disassembled my locks to get repainted, but I noticed there is a ring of clear plastic around the keyhole, as if it was supposed to be illuminated. Mine have perished so I need to remake them (I can use my 3D printer & clear filament) But I did not see any lamp as such. After some googling, I have found there was an anti-theft system on these locks. However, mine had no such things fitted. So adding a simple LED to a new 3D printed part would be really easy, though I wasn’t sure if this is something people do? And if so, what circuit do they put them on? Cheers
The usdm models had a light up ring that illuminated when the locked door handle was pulled. Jap/aus cars never got this feature however some similar Nissans of the era had it. J30 maxima for example would illuminate green around the key hole.
cheers for the reply. So when is the light supposed to actually light up anyway? Practically speaking, one would want it illuminated in the dark before one puts in the key to avoid missing the hole 10 times and ruining the paint... But how you'd achieve that I have no idea :/ Maybe proximity sensor or something?
ah i can now see where that microswitch goes. I 3D printed a new light pipe out of clear to suit a 5mm LED. looks pretty cool in the dark. I wonder if anyone has ever done that? Now I just need to decide on a colour If anyone wants to make their own, I can upload to thingiverse or better yet, upload the original cad file.
Personal opinion is that this feature is not worth having if the car is fitted with remote central locking. Having said that, replacing the plastic ring around the keyhole with 'new' would be nice since the old 25+yo rings are now showing sings of old age.
Yeah, 100% redundant with central locking... but having useless gizmo features like this makes me feel like a VIP However my originals have pretty much disintegrated and crumbled into many pieces... so it was kind of a necessity
Actually I'm just a beginner at 3D printing, using cheap filler material and its a crappy design contrived at 3am out of desperation lol. When its all finished (maybe by the end of the week or so) I'll post up pics and decide if I'm happy with them or not. I'm not sure how they will handle long term UV exposure though. I'll just upload the files for free so anyone can make their own Actually I have to move on Dec 29 (yay...) so when I have my crap together I could possibly run a batch if someone really wants em.
