blindspot monitor buzzer addition

[notaGolfR]

I've been unable to find where I asked about this before so SORRY!

The blindspot light in the side-mirrors are too easily missed by me. I have had the side-mirrors out and know where the wires to the little light go. There's a tiny plug to them.
Would it be as simple as wiring a piezo buzzer in series to the plug then poking it into the car interior, or what please?

[spellbound]

I've been unable to find where I asked about this before so SORRY!

The blindspot light in the side-mirrors are too easily missed by me. I have had the side-mirrors out and know where the wires to the little light go. There's a tiny plug to them.
Would it be as simple as wiring a piezo buzzer in series to the plug then poking it into the car interior, or what please?

Agree they are totally useless as a warning , should be red , i like your idea , would help .

[Guest001]

Well I was taught to look briefly in all mirrors about every 30 secs especially when I was bus driving so i just sort of flick my eyes around and if the light is on I notice it.

A buzzer would drive you mad on a multi lane road as it would be on nearly all the time in traffic

[notaGolfR]

Now we have BS monitors we do not have to do the risky "look briefly in all mirrors about every 30 secs " thing.

If psychological buzzer distraction-risk on a multi lane road exceeded risk of having my eyes off the road, I would include a gesture operated buzzer operation bypass system.

As the system uses the radar/anti collision, & we are advised not to mess with it, I am unsure about how to achieve the buzzer feature.

[Ozsko]

Any driver should know exactly where he is in respect to the surrounding traffic, using a blind spot monitor and relying on it takes away that awareness. I am old fashioned when it comes to mirrors unless I could have the Audi camera system then mirrors definitely become redundant. I was taught to scan all mirrors and the dash board every minute and it has saved a few speeding fines as well so I continue to do it.

[Guest001]

Any driver should know exactly where he is in respect to the surrounding traffic, using a blind spot monitor and relying on it takes away that awareness. I am old fashioned when it comes to mirrors unless I could have the Audi camera system then mirrors definitely become redundant. I was taught to scan all mirrors and the dash board every minute and it has saved a few speeding fines as well so I continue to do it.

Hooray Someone else with common sense Cant see every thing in mirrors and on a two lane road its on half the time anyway so I still use the mirrors regardless. Im sure notaGolfR's long list of cars didnt have this facility and he had to use his mirrors. Old habits die hard and are often still the best

[DV52]

I've been unable to find where I asked about this before so SORRY!

The blindspot light in the side-mirrors are too easily missed by me. I have had the side-mirrors out and know where the wires to the little light go. There's a tiny plug to them.
Would it be as simple as wiring a piezo buzzer in series to the plug then poking it into the car interior, or what please?

notaGolfR: It's certainly doable- IMO.

However, I think you meant "in parallel", rather than "in series" - the irony is that if you connect the buzzer in series, you will further reduce the lamp illumination because of the internal impedance of the buzzer - IMO

Also, you might want to consider adding a variable resistor (in series) with the buzzer as a volume control - the constant sound might be a tad annoying!!

The other embellishment that you might consider is to feed the buzzer through a simple single-pole relay which is wired-up as an AND-gate with inputs being the blind-spot warning lamp and the the turn-signal repeater LED like this:

In this design, the buzzer only sounds if you have indicated a turn AND there is a car in your blind-spot - much more discriminating and therefore more effective as a warning device - IMO.

Anyhow, please let us know how it works-out, if you proceed

Don

PS: I made-up the schematic diagram below from the wiring diagram for a mk7.5 NAR model Golf. I suspect that RoW mk7s will be fairly similar - hope it helps. You might be able to pick-up the warning lamp signal from one of the "coupling points" in the door

[notaGolfR]

Thanks DV52. I appreciate all your effort. As is my custom, I will certainly let you and the forum know my experience if I proceed.

[notaGolfR]

Hillbilly & Ozsko. I too was taught to scan mirrors constantly & this was rammed home to me when I (voluntarily...gee I am a goody) did a safe driver course in 1987? when we got the Cordia.
Later, with the 200SX I attached a curved mirror over the centre one when I noticed taxi drivers using them. I soon got used to the distance-behind factor and loved the way my awareness was great without so much use of side-mirrors.
It didn't work well in the Toyota, nor the Golf, plus I could not come to terms with the curved glass sides so made them flats.
NOW I am grappling with having the recommended way of adjusting the sides to eliminate blindspots i.e. lean over the centre console & adjust the LH, then put head on the driver window & adjust the RH.
My brain is neurologically challenged / boggling and now, with the advent of BS monitors, with their limitations including some missing of them flashing, I am thinking of putting the externals looking down the sides.
Whaddya reckon?

[Guest001]

Hillbilly & Ozsko. I too was taught to scan mirrors constantly & this was rammed home to me when I (voluntarily...gee I am a goody) did a safe driver course in 1987? when we got the Cordia.
Later, with the 200SX I attached a curved mirror over the centre one when I noticed taxi drivers using them. I soon got used to the distance-behind factor and loved the way my awareness was great without so much use of side-mirrors.
It didn't work well in the Toyota, nor the Golf, plus I could not come to terms with the curved glass sides so made them flats.
NOW I am grappling with having the recommended way of adjusting the sides to eliminate blindspots i.e. lean over the centre console & adjust the LH, then put head on the driver window & adjust the RH.
My brain is neurologically challenged / boggling and now, with the advent of BS monitors, with their limitations including some missing of them flashing, I am thinking of putting the externals looking down the sides.
Whaddya reckon?

Very good but if you still check the mirrors surely you will notice that the blindspot light is on if a car is beside you. I do but maybe Im different and used to driving large vehicles where you have to be aware of your position on the road always

PS your car ownership list is a bit short as I have owned over 35 different cars in my life

I find a mirror on either side is correctly adjusted it I can just see the door handles on the inner edges

[notaGolfR]

Thinking more about posts 7 and 8 above, plus the nuisance issue raised from use of buzzers, I now think I will use LED lights instead.


They would be in parallel with the BS lamps (thanks DV52) and positioned in the dash/windscreen crack. DV52's brilliant relay suggestion to make the system "more discriminating" would not be necessary. Granted the lights would be often on sometimes but that might be a good thing as it would alert to check the side mirrors.


"Simples" or have I overlooked something?

[Guest001]

Thinking more about posts 7 and 8 above, plus the nuisance issue raised from use of buzzers, I now think I will use LED lights instead.


They would be in parallel with the BS lamps (thanks DV52) and positioned in the dash/windscreen crack. DV52's brilliant relay suggestion to make the system "more discriminating" would not be necessary. Granted the lights would be often on sometimes but that might be a good thing as it would alert to check the side mirrors.


"Simples" or have I overlooked something?

Personally I think you are looking for a solution to a non existent problem as if you do a mirror check before moving you would see the existing lights anyway.
I hate flashing things and movement in my peripheral vision without extra flashing lights to distract me.

As they only come on when vehicles are beside you to stop you changing lanes into them why do you need to know if you arent moving across. If you are going to change lanes you do a mirror and head check anyway , Dont you.

Also on a multilane road they would virtually never be off and eventually the driver would get so used to them would ignore them

Everyone to their own but looks like a lot of work for virtually no gain.

[Flipper Dog]

May work in day light but come the darkness and it will annoy the "F" out of you. Like Hillbilly said above ^^^ do a mirror check.

[doc_777]

Do a head check, not just a mirror check.

[DV52]

Thinking more about posts 7 and 8 above, plus the nuisance issue raised from use of buzzers, I now think I will use LED lights instead.


They would be in parallel with the BS lamps (thanks DV52) and positioned in the dash/windscreen crack. DV52's brilliant relay suggestion to make the system "more discriminating" would not be necessary. Granted the lights would be often on sometimes but that might be a good thing as it would alert to check the side mirrors.


"Simples" or have I overlooked something?

hmm......... Of course it's entirely your decision -but IMO, your "indiscriminate" design (which is ostensibly replicating the BS light onto the dash) will still suffer from the annoyance factor. Placed on the dash/windscreen crack, the visibility of the LEDs will need to be bright to compete with sunny daylight conditions in the cabin. At night, the same illumination will likely be quite glaring!

You could bury the LEDs into a deep housing, or you could use an electronic device like a photo-transistor, or a light dependent resistor to modulate the LED illumination with cabin light level. But doing nothing to combat the human eye's increased sensitivity to light in darken environments is just ignoring the discomfort (and possibly, the safety problems) that the device will cause to the driver.

Personally, I would still use the "discriminating" design because there needs to be just one LED and it will be immediately obvious when not to proceed with a lane change - but that's simply my personal opinion!

Don