Steve Campbell Posted April 12, 2011 Share Posted April 12, 2011 I am a little ashamed to say that I never got around to fitting them following the bulk buy last year..... 😳 A look at ths wires coming out of the back of the Stack Dash scared me away and then I forgot about them for a while (plus the contortionist position I had to get in just to take a look put my back out for a day 😬) I'm now determined to fit them for this year....so a plea....has anyone fitted the DRE lights to a Stack before ? If so, can you provide a complete numpty guide to what to do ?? I have never "fiddled" with the car electrics before so really am starting from scratch here......instructions that a 12year old could follow might be about the right positioning 😬 Thanks in anticipation !  Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Fishy Dave Posted April 12, 2011 Share Posted April 12, 2011 What I found out yesterday from Caterham and from looking at a club members CSR (Cows Aloud) is as follows. If you invert yourself across the seats and look underneath the dash you will see a load of wires exiting the back of the stack in one neat bundle. This exits left behind the dash and runs a little way towards the passenger side. You need to find a cable that exits this loom of wires which will be coloured white, with a black trace (thin white wire with a black line running the length of it). In the CSR I looked at, there were actually two white wires with black traces in, thankfully they were joined together into one female connector. This white with black trace wire is the one which carries the rpm signal to the shift light. You can check you have the correct wire by starting the car, grabbing a volt meter, set it to 12v, then put the positive (red) probe of the voltmeter to the end of the white wire with black trace, then the negative (black) probe to something metal (chassis/steering column/bulkhead etc.). Look at the volt meters display, you should see the screen continually changing, probably somewhere between 3 and 7 volts. This is the pulse voltage coming from the coil, which your shift light will read and turn into a flash at the correct time. Assuming this has worked as described your next task is to find a live 12v wire and then an earth. Similar to the above, keep the black probe of the voltmeter on something metal in the car, whilst you use the red probe to touch a connector at random behind the dashboard in order to find a live. The Stack I looked at yesterday had a number of redundant wires and connectors, one of which was a live feed. You need to be keeping an eye on the display of the voltmeter for 12ish volts, so an assistant might be handy! As for an earth, I'm just going to find a suitable places to stick the earth lead to a solid metal part of the car. I'm presuming the DRE has instructions showing you have three wires from the shift light? Positive, signal/feed and earth? If so, then having followed the above to identify a signal and live wire, it's then just a case of having suitable connectors to plug the whole lot into the car. I'm connecting up a Microshift, but I believe the principles are the same. I will be fitting it properly in a couple of weeks so can take photos if needed. This all assumes the Stack in a CSR uses the same wires as your car?! If still stuck then call Caterham, they were a great help, indeed I sent Ansar an e-mail yesterday passing on praise. Hope this is simple enough, cheers, Dave Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Steve Campbell Posted April 13, 2011 Author Share Posted April 13, 2011 Hi Dave, Great start. I'm practising my contortionism moves to take a look this weekend 😬 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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