My "Flap Ajar" indicator

My Nissan Leaf Forum

Help Support My Nissan Leaf Forum:

This site may earn a commission from merchant affiliate links, including eBay, Amazon, and others.

hbquikcomjamesl

Well-known member
Joined
Mar 1, 2021
Messages
208
It's finished, and thanks to my having tested each subassembly as I completed it, it works.
Here is the microswitch. Even with a cardboard template, I found I had to make multiple adjustments to the bracket, so that the latch would press the switch lever correctly, and the latch spring would clear it. It's stainless steel because that's what was handy in my sheet metal scrap drawer. When the latch is open, the microswitch grounds the wire.

flap ajar microswitch by James Lampert, on Flickr

The wire is (as I noted in another thread) routed through the fender and the door jamb. It's since been covered with Gorilla Tape, and I've brushed a bit of "cold galv" primer on the bare metal at the hole; once my touch-up paint arrives, I'll revisit this area.


indicator wire routing by James Lampert, on Flickr

The circuit board has the most obnoxious beeper I could find, along with the connections for the indicator light (to the right of the board), and a long wire that taps into the 12V "lighter" socket, so it is only active when the accessory bus is powered up.

flap ajar components by James Lampert, on Flickr

Finally, the indicator light is the only visible part. It flashes yellow if I power up the car with the flap unlatched. The picture is slightly manipulated; it's not easy to photograph a flashing light, especially during the day.

flap ajar indicator by James Lampert, on Flickr
 
I just wish I hadn't had to go the long way around, to route the wire. But the places that looked (and felt) like grommets under the dash didn't correspond to anything under the hood, and vice versa. You'd think the engineers would have anticipated that somebody would want to run additional wires. Old Arabella, my 1978 510, had plenty of places to do that.
 
Nice. After all that work you'll probably never forget to latch it again. In which case, "mission accomplished". ;)
 
Under normal conditions, just having my flap fly open at freeway speed once was enough to keep me from failing to latch my flap after a normal charge.

But if the flap were unlatched by accident, mistake, or other misadventure (the second time was because the autosound installer who did my sonar evidently hit the flap release by mistake), I might not notice it until it flies open.

And of course, a geek installing a custom mod is kind of like a dog (or Jack Nicholson in a certain 1994 film I haven't actually seen) lifting his leg. Mounting a wastebasket and a CD rack on the HV disconnect hump (on a removable saddle) was one. My sonar display on the starboard rear headrest was another; this was yet another; a GPS navigator somewhere starboard of the console (and I installed a hidden, dedicated, 12V socket for it under the console when I tapped the power for the indicator) and a donut mount in the trunk will be two more acts of "just marking my territory."

*******

Yesterday, I took a few of the spare labels I'd printed for the indicator light, and used them to label the wires at the disconnect points.
 
This week, now that I have some touch-up paint, and a tube of silicone water-pump sealant, I've:
  • 1. Applied touch-up paint to the bare metal (over two coats of cold-galv) where I drilled a hole for the wire.
  • 2. Replaced the Gorilla Tape with a slightly neater piece.
  • 3. Applied sealant to my makeshift grommet and the edges of the Gorilla Tape, and
  • 4. Applied two coats of touch-up paint to the Gorilla Tape and the cured sealant.

The wiring is now both well-secured and well-camouflaged where it passes through the door-jamb.

And for good measure, I applied a bit of sealant to the electrical connections on the microswitch. Although between the heatshrink and the roughly quarter-inch ABS shim between the microswitch and the bracket, it's unlikely that even a salt-water drenching would short the microswitch and give me a false alarm.
 
another option would be a door switch the same as used on the passenger doors...then wire it inline with the drivers door. That way you would have a door ajar light/message and it would either be the drives door or the flap.
 
Well, my goal was to have a very specific flap-ajar alarm that would be impossible to ignore.

It's pure luck that the warble-rate of the beeper and the flash-rate of the LED are close enough that they at least appear to be in sync.
 
Here is a schematic.

flap ajar schematic by James Lampert, on Flickr

R1 is mandatory dropping resistor for plain LED (I used red).
If flashing LED (I used yellow) is 12V, then no dropping resistor is necessary for it.
R2 is to tame beeper to a tolerable volume.

I used flat disconnects for the negative side, and bullet disconnects on the positive side.

Additional disconnects (not shown) are needed if the LEDs are anchored inside the hollowed-out button-panel blank.

I used epoxy to fill the front, with window film and a laser-printed label on the front.
 
Back
Top