Intermittent Wipe - Pictures of Installed Unit?

[revilla]

Does anyone have any pictures that show the location amd orientation of the Lucas 6DA Intermittent Wipe control module as installed in a Caterham? I'm looking to retrofit and would like to keep it as authentic as possible. Thanks.

[DJ.]

Are you sure you want intermittent?

 

I followed instructions on here to fit a flick wipe switch and mounted a second flasher toggle switch by the wiper switch. It is the best mod I have done, I can flick the wipers without taking my hand off the wheel. More versatile than intermittent wipe in my opinion.

[SM25T]

Same for me. Great little modification.

[revilla]

Yes I would like to try the intermittent wipe. I've been looking at the internal wiring diagram for the 6DA unit and I'm pretty sure I could wire in a flick switch as well (I know that if wired across the existing switch it would just trigger the intermittent function, but it should be possible to wire it on the motor side of the 6DA unit to get both functions).

[Jonathan Kay]

Is it this unlabelled object? If you're not sure I'll work through the wiring colours.

1998 1800 K, RHD.

Jonathan

[revilla]

@Jonathan,

Thanks for that. The answer to your question is, yes ... and no! That's not another Schrödinger reference, but actually quite interesting for me. The unit shown there is certainly the wiper delay unit, but not actually the Lucas 6DA but something else. So it looks like Caterham used both the 6DA (which I've seen installed in some cars) and something else, which makes sense because I saw an article referring to "fixing the unreliable Caterham wiper delay unit" by replacing a crystal oscillator module which the 6DA doesn't have. The 6DA has two relays, a bunch of resistors and capacitors and one IC which I guess is analogue, given that it was used in the 80s. I'm guessing Caterham replaced it with something digital and micrcontroller-based, apparently with an unreliable clock circuit.

So the 6DA unit looks like this:

http://i.ebayimg.com/00/s/MTYwMFgxMDY2/z/UPwAAOSwCypWpqQd/%24_57.JPG

My wiring loom has provision for a wiper delay unit already, but no unit installed. Provision consists of two spurs off the loom with male and female plugs that are simply plugged together at the ends, plus an earth cable with an eyelet on the end. I was expecting to unplug the two and plug them into the sockets on the 6DA, the earth cable going to the right-hand (as show above) mounting screw.

I can see in your picture the loom spurs, the white(ish) nylon plugs and the loopy earth cable going to the top screw, but if a 6DA was oriented with its earthed mounting screw at the top these sockets would be on the right. There are no sockets on the right on yours. Instead it looks like the unit actually has wires coming from it, terminated with plugs, which connect to the loom spurs.

My issue was that my loom spurs, which were cable tied neatly away but which I have now untangled, are too short to allow the unit to sit naturally anywhere than smack where the fuse box is. Now I know why, my loom was provisioned with connectors for your style of delay unit where the integral wires act as extensions. The loom is probably pulled up a bit tighter under the scuttle too with no need to reach the wiper delay box. I'm sure the 6DA will work (or can be persuaded to work) fine as was apparently used with the same Lucas wiper motor in the Mini, TR7, TR8, Scimitar and Delorean.

Holden and various other places sell the connectors for peanuts (here). I'll make up some little loom extensions to plug into the box to replicate your setup. I can splice a flick-wipe switch into those extensions while I'm at it.

Thanks for the info as always. Now I understand.

Andrew

[Mechanical Moz]

The Caterham unit is made by Technisol, although I haven't been able to find any more information on it I think it's just a clone of the 6DA.

 

I have a 6DA fitted in a Mini and it works with the flick wipe. Holding the flick wipe for <1.5s activates the intermittent wipe, repeat to cancel. Holding the flick wipe for >1.5s performs a single sweep of the wipers without activating the intermittent function. A single sweep of the wipers takes approx 2s

 

I've been thinking myself that I'd like to install a flick wipe switch/button on the 7, possibly on the wheel.

[Mechanical Moz]

A good explanation of how the Lucas 2 speed wiper system works, including the flick wipe. 

http://www.mgb-stuff.org.uk/wiper3.htm

[revilla]

@Mechanical Moz - That's great, thanks for the info.

[Jonathan Kay]

How about an A-Off-B spring loaded to centre switch with the headlamp flash on one way and a single wipe on the other?

Jonathan

[revilla]

@Jonathan - That sounds like a good idea. I can see a couple of drawbacks though:

APEM do make a Momentary-Off-Momentary switch in the same range with the same actuator style as the Caterham switches, product code would be "637H/2+U282" (where the "+U282" specifies the black plastic Caterham-style ergonomic actuator) here. They are not widely available though and the cheapest supplier I can find is in Italy here.

Using this however would mean that the flick-wipe function would be neither fused (you could add an in-line fuse) nor ingition-switched (it would work with the key out) which seems a bit messy. You could either fix this by running the feed through a relay that only connected it when the ignition was on, or APEM do a double-pole version of the switch which would allow you to use one half of one pole for the flash and the other half of the other pole for the flick-wipe independently - you would effectively be using it as two completely separate switches when thrown either way.

The problem is that while such a switch is apparently available from APEM as "647H/2+U282" (the second digit being "4" specifying double-pole), it doesn't seem to be stocked anywhere, Google doesn't come up with anything useful and I guess it's a special bulk order item from the factory.

So you would either have to live with a switch that didn't match, or swap them all. Any I'm a bit of a perfectionist so one switch different to all the others would bug me!

[Jonathan Kay]

Agree about the need for neatness in switchgear.

Using this however would mean that the flick-wipe function would be neither fused (you could add an in-line fuse) nor ingition-switched (it would work with the key out) which seems a bit messy. 

Why couldn't you run a fused supply, either ignition switched or not according to taste, to the single pole version and then pick up on the existing inputs to the wiper control unit and the headlamp relay?

Thanks

Jonathan

PS: Nearly added a "just" there. ;-)

PPS: If you forgot which way round it worked you could wipe your windscreen when trying to communicate with other drivers, as traditionally performed with the stalks in unfamiliar cars.  :-)

[Stridey]

Is this it? I took a few pics when I replaced my dash.

 

 

 

[revilla]

@Jonathan: The flash switch works the main beams directly. One side of the switch is connected directly to the battery without either the ignition switch, a fuse or any kind of relay in between, as highlighted below. The other side goes to the main beam Fuse 8 and from there straight to the lights. So if you were to use a single pole switch and didn't want to rewire the headlights, you would be limited to using that same live feed and switching it to the lights one way and the wipers the other.

@Stridey:Yes! that's it, a Lucas 6DA Wiper Controller. Interesting that on Jonathan's car the wiper controller is low down and out to the left whereas on yours it's high up and more central. Looking at your fuse box, that also seems to be oriented the other way to mine. On mine the row of fuses runs vertically whereas yours seems to run horizontally. Maybe there wasn't much logic to where they put these things after all. It also looks on those pictures as though the casing has had to be notched out a bit to clear a rivet?

Oh well, at least I know for sure now that the 6DA should just work and I'll stick it somewhere neat and practical on the bulkhead out of the way.

Thanks again,

Andrew

Edit: Just read my own comment back and realised how nerdy "Yes! that's it, a Lucas 6DA Wiper Controller." sounds!

[Stridey]

My fuses do run vertically. Car (X flow, 96) was assembled from a kit by a dealer, supplied direct by Caterham which may explain differences? 

[Nigel Riches]

Andrew, you seem like a tech sort of person, you could probably make a delay  / intermittent wiper circuit using the old 555 timer ic, several sites pop up from a Google search, might even be able to get it all in a 6DA cover. Just a thought.

Nigel