highest this year was what... 80's? only time i run the ac is when my 4mo daughters in the car...

 

We reached 111° here earalier this summer. AC is a must.....

 

A bit more information: nearly as I can tell, what's going on is that the circuit is working well enough to put the system in recirc, but when the fan is on (which is kinda the point) the indicator light is not.

I probably can live with that, but I'm still going to try a larger capacitor (for a longer "button push") to see if that helps. I'll probably also double check, again, the directness of the connection between the pad I'm using and the contact patch for the physical button.

More as things develop.

 

thats awesome hopefully you get it figured out! so i can start my install! and DB/SB no kiddin man thats melting point for me haha, i prefer the cold. you guys run different thermostats there? to compensate for the higher heat?

 

No, I keep the same themostat year round in our cars. Used to change to a 'winter thermostat' in my cars in the cooler months but I haven't done that practice in over 20 years.

 

lol id imagine it gets old after awhile. ive always wondered about that though

 

Just wanted to let y'all know that while I haven't given up on this, I also haven't gotten to work on it any further -- the early arrival of my second son has kinda derailed my "project" time the last ten days or so.

This is still at the top of my tinkering list, but it may be another week or so before I have enough sleep to feel confident soldering again -- all I need is a nice iron burn to make life a bit more "interesting" around here.

 

Congrats on the new arrival.

 

firemangeorge!


The in-laws are visiting this week, and I finally got some time to futz with this today. I swapped the 1000μF capacitor out for a 2200μF one. All the calculations and modelling I've done say this should roughly double the "button push" time in the circuit.

The first cycle seemed to work exactly as desired, but for every subsequent test it has behaved exactly the same as the first arrangement. Namely it does seem to successfully switch over to recirc, but the indicator light doesn't stay on when the fan is blowing. One other change is that the time it takes the circuit to recover to fire again is longer with the larger cap. I can't measure it without taking the whole thing apart and measuring it separate from the AC control unit, which I'm not inclined to do.

Given the size of the space I have to work in, 2200μF is about the largest cap I can physically fit into the controller unit, so that's about the end of that road.

For now, the best answer I have is that this circuit works save for the indicator light wonkiness, so anyone of a mind to try it: go nuts, it should do the same for you.

My next step will be to try a different approach for the "button pusher" circuit (one without giant capacitors), but that's going to take a while. Quite a while, I'm afraid. First I'll have to research and figure out what that different approach might be, and then get time to actually build it.

Whenever that does happen, I'll post updated results here, but I don't want anyone holding their breath waiting for it.

 

Well, the ruddy thing quit working this morning. I don't anticipate having a chance any time soon to even pull it out to see what's going on. Hopefully nobody's holding their breath on this.