My basic idea for this project was to hide the unsightly garage door remote control in my car. At first, I had planned to somehow hook the garage door opener to the emergency light switch, but that didn’t pan out. Instead what I ended up with was even cooler… flashing my high beams now activates my remote control, which in turn causes my garage door to open and close!
Required parts
- Garage door remote control (same button opens and closes the door)
- 3/32″ headphone jack and matching plug
- heavy duty DPDT relay
- wire, solder, heat shrink, etc.
Steps
So here’s an overview of what I did:
- Cracked open the remote control case, installed the 3/32″ jack where it would fit and still be able to close. Soldered little wires from the 2 terminals on the jack to the 2 sides of the pushbutton switch (so that in essence, shorting out the headphone jack would simulate pressing the button).
- Opened the relay box in my car and determined which relay was triggered by the high beam switch. Removed that SPDT relay.
- Bought a new DPDT relay. Crimped some spade connectors onto some thick wires, and connected my new relay back to the jacks in the relay box, being careful to connect the proper leads to the proper terminals. (Purple to the electromagnet side, and red to the switch side of the relay).
- Connected the 2 remaining terminals on my new DPDT relay to 2 wires, and soldered the other ends of those wires to a 3/32″ plug. Stuck that plug in the garage door opener.
I think this would all be a little more clear with a couple diagrams. I’ll try to draw one of those up soon.
