Heated windshield button

[veebs]

Hi all,

A question for I think a relatively small group on here with heated windshields…

Does the button eventually ‘time out’ when you push it? And if it does, for a really advanced question, has anyone found a way to disable the timeout?

I’m in an early thought bubble stage - retrofitting heated seats meant I changed out the AC controls, and I now have a surplus button for a headed windshield. I’m pondering using the power feed from that as a switch for spot lights (either direct, or via a relay depending on draw).

But, having them turn off after x minutes would be rather annoying…

[BradC]

Does the button eventually ‘time out’ when you push it? And if it does, for a really advanced question, has anyone found a way to disable the timeout?

Yes it does. No I don't see any way to disable it. Manual says :


Windshield Heater Switch: Energizes the windshield heater for a set time period, until the switch is pressed
again or until the engine stops, whichever occurs first. An amber LED in the switch is illuminated while the heater
is on.


On the initial selection of the windshield heater, the ATCM uses a short or long defrost phase at full power, followed by a
low power phase. The defrost phase used depends on the ambient temperature. During the low power phase, the
windshield heater relay is cycled off for 80 seconds and on for 40 seconds.

So that's not going to be of much use to you.

I used it this morning. It was fully defrosted before I got to the traffic lights (about 5 houses down the road).

[veebs]

Cheers BradC. I also found a US reference (ie LR4), about using ambient temperature to decide when to enable/disable the screen.

Never mind - all sounds more complicated than I had hoped!